


Postcards

by MoreThanJust_Surviving



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Inspired by Killing Eve (TV 2018), Killing Eve (TV 2018) Season/Series 03, Lesbian, Masturbation, NSFW, No Lesbians Die, POV Alternating, POV Eve Polastri, POV Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Postcards, Slow Burn, Smut, Soft Eve Polastri, Soft Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, They are heartbroken I'm sorry, Villanelle, Villaneve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:20:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 24,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24536062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoreThanJust_Surviving/pseuds/MoreThanJust_Surviving
Summary: Eve is trying her best to go cold turkey from Villanelle. She regrets walking away from her on the bridge, regrets not kissing her one last time, regrets it all. At first, she flees London to escape herself but soon she realises travel might just be the best way to find herself.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 213
Kudos: 505





	1. The Guinness Factory

**Author's Note:**

> <3 here's a collaborative spotify playlist that goes with the fic, pls feel free to add some songs you think work well with the fic! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/19Zi9BQIeBhPZEGNTaP7w6?si=86QgEXTmSRyUsb7KOvcmhA
> 
> (Aiming for about 15 chapters with this one to prolong s3 as much as I can :) Other KE fics on my page if you’re interested! I'm gonna add some Villanelle POV chapters to this too, alternating between E and V like I did with my other big fic 'Run For You'. THANK U for reading x)

It had been four long, lonely nights since Eve and Villanelle had walked away from each other on the bridge. Eve had packed a bag, a 35L carry-on travel backpack, and fled the morning after that night. She couldn’t hack it, couldn’t stay in London any longer.  _ Cold turkey _ , Carolyn had said to them both, and Eve had understood what that had meant. Being four days clean of her own personal brand of heroin, Villanelle, Eve had been shaking convulsively each night in her Airbnbs.

She had flown out of London in the early hours of the morning after a terrible night's sleep, tossing and turning and painfully regretting walking away from Villanelle. Her mustard yellow coat burned into the insides of her eyelids each time she closed them. It didn’t feel real. She had meant what she had said to her “when I try and think of my future, I just see your face over and over again”. What would Eve do with her life now that it wasn’t guided by Villanelle? And Villanelle had taken all of her life and loved ones with her? 

Eve was on the run. Not from police or the law or anyone that meant she had to lie low and blend into the crowd, but from herself. Because Villanelle and Eve had, over their time together, become  _ one person _ in some way. She had listened to the audiobook of ‘Bridges of Madison County’ on the plane to Dublin and sobbed in the cramped toilet upon hearing the quote:

_ “So here I am walking around with another person inside of me. Though I think I put it better the day we parted when I said there is a third person we have created from the two of us. And I am stalked now by that other entity.” _

Dublin was a split-decision Eve had made on the way to Gatwick airport. She knew she wanted  _ out _ . Out of London and out of her life for a while. The flight to Dublin was advertised as the cheapest and, since Eve was now out of a job again, that felt like a smart move. Three different Airbnbs in three days had brought Eve here, to an apartment within walking distance to the Guinness Factory.

“Why the hell not,” Eve had mumbled to herself and accepted a flyer for a tour of the factory. 

She’d been feeling not just alone, but lonely these last few days. Staying in empty hotel rooms was doing good to reset her physically, but she was surprised that she was craving human contact. People annoyed her, bored her. Usually.

Eve walked into the Guinness Factory, paid for the tour and tagged onto a group that was about to start. It was a well-needed distraction from everything that she had been through in the last few days. Crushing Dasha in Aberdeen, Konstantin’s heart attacks and… Villanelle. All of it felt like a million miles away. Eve was thankful for the piece of mind as she climbed brewery steps, listened to the tour guide and accepted a pint of Guinness at the end of the tour. She drank it in big gulps, felt the iron rush to her blood and the alcohol to her head. She felt dizzy and  _ alive. _

In the gift shop, Eve flicked through the stand of postcards. She realised, there in the bright light of the Guinness Brewery gift shop, that she had no one to send a card to. Last month, she might have sent one to Niko. Last week, she would have loved to tease Villanelle and send one to her. Today, no one. Eve picked one up to buy anyway; the queue was long so she slipped it into her parka pocket and left the factory without paying.

On the rainy walk back to her Airbnb, Eve dipped into a Tesco Express to buy food for the night and picked up a book of stamps. Stir fry kit, _reduced_. A bottle of white wine, the cheapest. _All that’s missing is the bath bomb_ , Eve mused as she walked up the bakery aisle looking for something for her breakfast. 

As she leaned against the kitchen counter and stirred her Chinese stir fry mix, Eve rummaged around in her backpack for a pen to write the postcard. 

_ To Eve _ , she wrote.  _ Dublin is fairing me pretty well. _

“Don’t be stupid,” she said to herself as she threw the postcard to one side and opened the fridge to add her noodles to the frying pan. What was she doing? Eve felt ridiculous. She felt alone, here in her tiny studio apartment for the night, hundreds of miles away from everyone and everywhere she knew. Eve added the sauce to her pan and stirred. Her plan with the postcard had been to write to herself and send it to her flat to read when she got home. She thought she would feel less alone when she wrote it and maybe it would give her the illusion that she was writing to someone else; but, as she was writing it, she just felt like she was pitying herself.

Eve tipped her noodles into a pasta dish from the cupboard and sat at the tiny one-person breakfast bar. _ Dublin is fairing me pretty well _ , she mused, laughing at her choice of words.

“Who says that?” She asked herself sarcastically, hungrily stuffing noodles into her mouth. She picked up the pen and carried on writing, humouring herself, mostly. 

_ I did the Guinness Brewery tour today which was good to take my mind off things. Because that’s why I’m here isn’t it.  _

She paused, chewing and twiddling the pen. 

_ I listened to ‘Bridges of Madison County’ on the plane here. You know, the book that came before the film with Clint and Meryl. It was good but I cried so hard I almost threw up in the plane bathroom, although that could have been the smell. _

Eve almost facepalmed over her stir fry. What was the point in this? 

_ Wish you were here _ , she wrote laughing at her own joke.  _ Eve x _

Eve flipped the postcard over and looked at the picture she had chosen. It had the vast, white Samuel Beckett Bridge on the front; she had walked across it the day before and had been all-consumed with thoughts of Villanelle. Bridges and buses were two places Eve would always struggle being from now on. It hadn’t been a conscious decision to pick a postcard with a bridge on, clearly the night they had walked away from each other had been burned into her subconscious. She twisted the last few noodles onto her fork and picked the Biro back up. On either end of the bridge she drew two stick figures and internally scolded herself for allowing thoughts of Villanelle to consume her even slightly.

That night, Eve slept better than she had done since walking away from Villanelle. She dreamt comfortably of the Samuel Beckett Bridge and her subconscious thanked her for allowing visions of Villanelle to swim in and out of the dream. Villanelle was holding her hand on the bridge, stroking her hair and smiling over a pint of Guinness. Eve didn’t remember the dream when she woke up but felt well rested and in a good mood and allowed herself to post the post card on her walk around Dublin that day.

Eve visited a Tourist Information centre and asked the young woman working there where she recommended she visit next.

“Oh, aye, Belfast’s always real nice this time of year,” the girl said, “I can book you onto the next coach if you want ma’am?”

Eve, revelling in her new spontaneity, agreed. Within an hour, she was on a coach and heading to Belfast. She thought about the postcard she had sent home and smiled at the thought of having mail to read when she arrived from her travels. 


	2. The First Hostel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just Eve. Not MI6 Eve or Divorced Eve or the Eve that was desperately pining over and irrevocably in love with a glamorous, wildly inaccessible Russian Assassin.

At the back of the coach, regretfully near the toilet, Eve scrolled her phone for a place to stay in Belfast. Airbnbs had been nice enough for the first few heartbroken days Eve had spent away from London and she was thankful for their peace and quiet. However she was beginning to crave company, which surprised her. She came across a website,  _ Hostelworld _ , that advertised hostels and considered booking a bed in a shared room for the night. Eve had never stayed in a hostel before. She found one in the city centre and clicked on its photo album. Ever raised her eyebrows. It looked  _ cool _ . She gazed out the window at the passing Irish scenery and her mind wandered to Bill, her old colleague and best friend. What he would say if he could see her now, booking a spontaneous hostel trip! She smiled, Bill would be proud of her. He'd joke about her following in his travelling footsteps and they'd laugh about how out of character this trip was for her. 

Eve clicked onto the next Belfast hostel that caught her eye. This one's bunk beds even looked  _ cool _ . Eve pulled at her hair and scraped it back, self conscious that she would look out of place in such a stylish place. At nine pound a night, it was worth it, Eve thought and clicked  _ book _ . 

The coach from Dublin to Belfast didn't take long, although Eve fell asleep, her forehead sticky against the glass when she woke with a start as the bus pulled into the station. She had dribbled a pool of saliva onto the window ledge and wiped it away, looking around to see if anyone had seen. They hadn't, and Eve felt wildly invisible here. She was reminded of The Ghost assassin that she had tracked down. With a shudder, she thought of Villanelle and how she had asked "do you want to watch?" when she had tortured The Ghost for information. Looking back, Eve regretted not watching. She gathered her bag and coat and made her way to the front of the bus. 

"Cheers," she said to the driver and imagined, for the hundredth time, what had gone on with The Ghost and Villanelle in that shipping container. Something about Villanelle inflicting pain, mentally and physically, used to make Eve's mouth water. 

_ But Villanelle is different now _ , she mused as she crossed the bus station and followed signs to the exit. Villanelle doesn't want to do it anymore. Did that disappoint Eve? Was the woman that she had fallen for gone?

"You're fucked up, Eve," she said under her breath and pulled out her phone to search for directions to her hostel and distract herself from her thoughts of Villanelle. 

Google Maps told Eve the hostel was a fourteen minute walk away so she headed there on foot. The evening was beginning to draw in and streetlights flickered on around her. After walking for a few minutes, Eve came across a stand of postcards on the street outside a small corner store and slipped into the mass of green decor and shamrocks to buy one. Looking at the pictures, she regretted her decision immediately because she didn't recognize any of the scenes, having only just arrived in this city. However, the shop was small and the owner was staring at her so she bought one anyway.  _ The Giants Causeway _ , it read in cursive across the stacks of black rock columns. 

"What did ya think, love?" the man asked Eve gesturing to the picture of The Causeway. 

"Oh, yeah, it was great," Eve said, conversation coming slowly to her because she hadn't properly spoken to many people over the last week. She knew she should just jump at this opportunity to chat with the man but something in his eyes reminded her of Raymond so she stumbled out of the shop, breathing heavily. Axe to the shoulder. What a way to go. Eve shook her head of her thoughts, pushing Raymond, The Twelve and how comforting Villanalle’s arm had felt around her shoulder out of her mind and bringing her attention back to Google Maps.

The hostel was even cooler than it had been in photos. People in their twenties, primarily, laid across sofas and played pool and smiled at her when she walked in. An Australian girl, definitely young enough to be her daughter, greeted Eve at the front desk. Eve knew she must stand out a mile away.

“G’day,” the girl said with a smile. “Ooh, you got the best dorm room here,” she looked at Eve’s booking confirmation email. 

“Oh, yeah?” 

“Yeah, just you wait ‘til you see the view.” She handed Eve her key, “we’ve got a match at six, come down if you’re not going anywhere.”

Eve thanked the girl and headed to find her dorm.  _ Dorm _ . Eve felt like she was in college again. A little apprehensive, Eve climbed the staircase, followed it to the top and pushed the door of her room open. 

Three bunk beds lined the small room. A huge window, almost floor-to-ceiling, was across from the door. She moved across the room and gazed out of it.

“Wow,” she breathed at the view.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” A voice said to her left.

Eve snapped her head around, so mesmerised by the astonishing view of the sun setting over Belfast, she hadn’t noticed a slim, dark-haired girl reading in the bottom bunk next to her. 

“Oh, hi,” Eve said, “yeah, I had no idea Belfast was so…” She trailed off.

“I’m Natalia,” the girl said, sitting up and laying her book to one side, “where are you travelling?”

“Eve,” she said in reply, “I’m not sure yet, I’m - er - new to this, too.” Eve gestured around the hostel room.

“First hostel? Oh you’ll love it. I practically live out of hostels now.”

Eve and Natalia talked for about half an hour. Natalia was a full-time backpacker. Eve didn’t even know that was a full-time occupation and marvelled at Natalia’s life and how it differed from her own. She’d travelled to so many countries and on her own, too. 

“Don’t you get lonely?” Eve asked, looking out the window at the orange glowing sky. It made her think of Villanelle’s mustard yellow coat on the bridge. She pulled her eyes away from it and back to Natalia.

“Not in hostels, they’re always buzzing. You’ll see,” she winked at Eve. “There’s a match on soon, let’s go down.”

Eve was secretly very thankful to have met Natalia so soon. She followed her down the stairs after Natalia had helped her lock her backpack into a locker. Eve wondered what the ‘match’ was. She was out of the football loop since separating from Niko and Rugby was never something she’d understood. In the main room, about thirty people gathered around the pool tables. A gong sounded.

“Captains pick their teams!” The Australian girl shouted over the noise and everyone fell silent. Eve felt sick. Playing pool was not what she had thought this evening would have consisted of. Immediately, she tried to back away. 

“Oi!” Natalia said, tugging on her sleeve, “you’ll have fun, trust me.” She winked again and Eve’s mouth became dry. Eve stood, rooted to the spot, her heart pounding in her ears over the music and cheering and shouting of names. Sports. _ Team sports. _

_ Should have just booked an Airbnb _ , Eve thought as she was jostled around in the crowd of excitable twenty-somethings.

“You,” a captain pointed at her, despite not many people being chosen already. Eve had expected to have been picked last or, if it was anything like school, not at all. “You’re gonna be my secret weapon,” he grinned at her as she walked to stand behind him.

That evening was, somehow, one of the most fun nights Eve had had in a long time. The friendly competition between the two teams, the beers and being surrounded by a group of excitable  _ \- happy _ \- people made Eve forget her problems. She was surprised by just how relaxed she felt; years of MI6 had meant her shoulders were permanently tensed. But Eve felt great. Eve’s team won and her captain had been right - Eve really was a secret weapon. She potted the 8 Ball to rowdy cheering and was scooped into the air by a man she didn’t even know the name of, everyone chanting hers.

After the game, lots of people stayed to cook together in the hostel kitchen. Eve peeled carrots stood between two impossibly tall German men. She looked down at the vegetables in front of her and couldn’t help but smile. How different tonight had been from last night! 

“You glad you stayed?” Natalia appeared behind her and slipped in between Eve and one of the men.

“Yeah,” Eve said, “thanks for… making me.”

Natalia laughed, “no bother, hey, you never said what you’re in Belfast for?”

Eve was torn back to reality and the carrot peeler slipped from her grip. What  _ was _ she in Belfast for? 

“Uh, long story, really,” she mumbled, peeling the carrots. “Lost my job, separated from-”

“You know what?” Natalia said, touching her on her arm to stop Eve. “You don’t have to tell me anything. You’re just Eve to me, clean slate. That’s why people are travelling right?”

_ Just Eve _ . She liked the sound of that. Not MI6 Eve or Divorced Eve or the Eve that was desperately pining over and irrevocably in love with a glamorous, wildly inaccessible Russian Assassin.

“I’m heading up to the Giant’s Causeway tomorrow,” Natalia began to tell Eve. “It’s supposed to be-”

“Can I come?” Eve jumped at the opportunity to be distracted for a few more hours.

“Oh, hell yeah!” Natalia exclaimed and clasped Eve on the back. She genuinely looked like she wanted Eve to come, too.

Eve fell asleep that night feeling good. It had been so long since she’d stayed up late drinking beers in good company, shared a meal and looked forward to the next day ahead of her. She rolled over in her hostel bunk bed, and looked out of the crack in the curtain at the incredible view of the city, a sea of inky blue and twinkling lights.


	3. Admit it, Eve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve is honestly thriving in Ireland! She's making friends, she's pushing herself out of her comfort zone... but she just can't get Villanelle off her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eee bit of a short one that I wrote a lil tipsy ;) enjoy x

An alarm that wasn’t Eve’s woke her up at 7am. For a few sleepy seconds, the unfamiliar beeping confused her, then the previous evening’s events came rushing back.

“G’mornin, Eve,” a whisper said from a bunk bed to her right. Eve blinked and adjusted her eyes to the bright morning light shining through the gap in the curtains that she had fallen asleep looking out of. Late at night, when everyone else had been asleep and snoring, Eve allowed herself to think of Villanelle: Villanelle squashed up against the wall in the tiny bunk with her. Villanelle sleeping with her face pressed into Eve’s neck. Villanelle. 

“Hey,” she whispered back to Natalia who was already rolling out of her own bunk. The four other women in the room were all beginning to wake up, rustling in their duvets.

That morning, over the cooked breakfast and cereal the hostel served, Eve and Natalia sleepily scrolled the internet for tours and buses to The Giants Causeway. A big part of Eve was expecting Natalia to turn around and say that she’d rather go alone, or with someone cooler and younger. This insecurity was new to Eve and she tried to shake it off as she realised she was probably just being stupid. 

_ Just because Villanelle walked away, doesn’t mean everyone else will _ , she told herself as she scooped a second helping of baked beans onto her plate.

After breakfast, Eve had her first hostel shower. It was laid out like a gym locker room which had Eve fumbling around with her towel and feeling slightly self-conscious. She noticed all the other women showering were wearing flip flops and made a conscious reminder to pick some up next time she was in the city - better that than a fungal infection. Everyone stood in rows, washing their faces and bruising their teeth. This was going to take some getting used to for Eve. She wasn’t a prude but something about the rows of women in towels made her become shy and not know where to put her eyes.

Before long, though, she was chatting with other girls about where they were going that day, how they were liking Ireland and, could I borrow your toothpaste? Everyone that had been at the Pool match the night before greeted Eve very cheerily and, as Eve stood in her cubicle under the hot water, she felt  _ chilled out _ . That was the only way to describe it. She felt relaxed and happy and glad she had made the decision not just to come to the hostel but to Ireland, too. She was thankful, in a way, for the terrible week she had had that brought her here. Eve washed her hair with a dollop of the pink liquid from the vast, nameless container bolted to the tiled wall. It made her think of Villanelle: how much she would cringe if she could see Eve washing her curls with something so cheap and bad quality!

She smiled with her eyes closed as the suds from it ran down her face, “sorry, baby,” she said quietly and used the same pink liquid to scrub at her underarms.

The bus ride to the town near the Causeway took a little over an hour. Eve learned lots about Natalia: her hometown in rural Slovenia, the bad break-up that was a catalyst for her travels, her parents and her time Inter-railing across Europe. 

“So you just go on trains the whole way?” Eve had asked, intrigued.

“Yeah, you just buy an Inter-rail Pass and off you go! Pretty much anywhere in Europe.”

Eve gazed out of the window as the green hills rolled by and the Atlantic Ocean became visible on the horizon.

“You thinking about doing it?” Natalia asked.

“Yeah, it sounds good... busy,” she added. Eve liked the idea of being busy. She made a promise to herself that if she did go Inter-railing, to not allow any trips to Paris or Barcelona.  _ Maybe it’s time you went cold turkey, _ Carolyn’s voice sounded in her ears. 

“I’ll show you the website later, if you want,” Natalia said kindly. 

Eve and Natalia went their separate ways for the afternoon and arranged to meet later at the hostel in the neighbouring village. The Giant's Causeway was incredible, like nothing Eve had ever seen. Standing on the rocks and looking out at the endless ocean of blue, Eve wondered why she had never been to this place before, or Ireland for that matter. 

_ Life always just seemed to get in the way _ , Eve thought, thankful for the first time that she’d been fired. She sat herself on a grassy mound just next to the basalt columns and dug in her rucksack for the postcard she had bought the evening before. How long ago that felt! Time flies when you’re… having fun. She really was having fun here. Eve held the postcard out at arms reach next to the Giant’s Causeway in front of her.

“Pretty cool,” she said under her breath, admiring the phenomenal view and impressed with herself for getting here (almost) alone. She’d travelled a little when she was younger but never like this: never on her own - or ‘solo’ as Natalia referred to it - and never without any sort of plan or direction. Inter-railing really did seem like something Eve could see herself doing. This New Eve, anyway.

_ To Eve _ , she wrote in small letters at the top of the postcard.

_ I stayed in a hostel in Belfast last night - which was strangely awesome - and now I’m sitting pretty much where this photo was taken as I write this. _

Eve rolled her eyes at herself for being so sentimental. 

_ I’m doing alright, _ she paused, soaking up the view in front of her. It really was beautiful. Villanelle on the bridge popped into her mind. “It’s a very beautiful face,” she had said to Eve, smugly speaking about her own face. Imagine having confidence like that! If their encounter on the bridge had gone differently, Eve might be writing to Villanelle instead of to herself right now; she might have written something like ‘the view in front of me is so beautiful, but not as beautiful as you’. Eve shook her head, like a dog trying to rid its ears of water as she pushed Villanelle out of her mind.

_ Today I realised _ , Eve wrote carefully as the wind blew her hair wildly and the postcard on her knee threatened to blow away,  _ that life should be about more than just surviving. Don’t we deserve better than that? _

So many months Eve had spent running away from and running towards danger. It felt good to be out here in nature, alone and present. She laughed aloud,  _ maybe I’ll be doing yoga next, _ she thought.

Eve still had an inch of postcard left but couldn’t think of what else to write. She wanted to write ‘I miss you’, for the sake of it, for the sake of having someone to miss and someone to care about. Instead, she wrote:

_ Admit it, Eve, you wish I was here. _

Why? Because this was Eve admitting it: she wished Villanelle was here. 


	4. The Tower Bridge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle is still in London, a week after the night on the Tower Bridge. She's not doing very well...

Villanelle's thumb hovered over the 'book flight' button on the airline web page. Was she really ready to leave London, leave all of this - all of Eve - behind? It had been a week since the night she had said goodbye to Eve, supposedly forever, and Villanelle had not been coping at all. She'd spent the entire week confined to the four walls of her boxy hotel room, heartbroken like she had never been before and lonely beyond imaginable. Eve was gone which, to Villanelle, meant she was in mourning. When she had shot Eve last summer in the ruins in Rome, Villanelle had been able to cope as it had been her own choice to kill Eve. Eve had walked away from her and Villanelle couldn't accept the rejection and so shooting her seemed to be the easiest way out, though this time it was different. Villanelle was different. Everything that had happened in Russia with her family had changed her. For better or for worse, it had changed her.

Villanelle gazed longingly out of the window, still deliberating whether to book a flight out of London or not. She should probably go home, back to Barcelona. But doing that would mean walking away from Eve and the night of the bridge. Villanelle wasn't sure whether she was ready to move onto the next stage of their break up yet. 

She could see the Tower Bridge from this window. Late at night when she looked out at it, curled under the quilted throw in the armchair by the window, Villanelle wished she couldn't. The vision of Eve walking, step by step away from her, was too much for Villanelle to bear. The lights of the city, and the grief she was feeling as she pictured Eve, had her eyes stinging as she looked out across London. Night time was always the worst. Villanelle felt so incredibly alone. She couldn't sleep. It took everything in her not to wrench the hotel room door open and run all the way to Eve's apartment. But knowing that this was what Eve wanted was stopping Villanelle from going to beg her to see her again.

_ If you love her, let her go _ , she thought. And this was love. Villanelle knew it in her heart. Love seemed like an entirely new emotion to Villanelle. Infatuation and obsession were feelings she was familiar with and, sure that was how it had started, but it was different now. Villanelle was different now. She thought of her mother and pressed her forehead against the cold glass, desperate for some sort of solace.

Villanelle unlocked her phone and looked down at the flight information. In less than twelve hours she could be back in sunny Barcelona. 

"Mind over matter," she told herself and clicked  _ book flight _ . 

Reluctant to leave the warmth and comfort of the throw she had been tangled in, Villanelle pulled herself out of the chair and began packing her suitcase. A heartbroken week in a single room was enough to make it look like a bomb had hit it. Takeaway boxes littered the floor, along with dirty clothes, slightly cleaner clothes and salty tear-soaked tissues. 

It took Villanelle over an hour to pack her small bag. She'd pick up clothes she'd worn in Eve's presence or catch a glimpse of the bridge out of the window and sink onto the bed, gasping for air and relief. Once she'd managed to pack it all, Villanelle headed out of the room, but only after she'd lingered for a long time as if it was Eve she was having a final look at. 

"I'm not ready to let you go," she said thickly to the room, and Eve, as she paused in the doorway. 

Instead of getting a cab straight to the airport, Villanelle had two things she wanted to do before she left London. Firstly, she walked to Eve's apartment. She knew she shouldn't have but she needed to give herself this. She walked there like a death row prisoner would take their final steps towards the execution chamber. The chilly London air stung her eyes, though they remained dry: as though her body physically couldn’t cry anymore. Weak from her aching heart and lack of energy from living off takeaways, putting one foot in front of the other was painful and slow.

As soon as Villanelle walked up towards Eve’s apartment building, she regretted it. She ached to know if Eve was inside, ached to speak to her and ask to… to what? To get back together? Villanelle felt pathetic. 

_ She wasn’t even your girlfriend, _ she told herself, tore her eyes away from the building and wheeled her suitcase across the street. 

The last place Villanelle wanted to visit was the tower bridge, the final place she had been close to Eve. She was thankful when she stood there in the centre of the river for the daylight around her. If it had been nighttime like that night a week ago, Villanelle didn’t think she’d have been able to cope with the darkness engulfing her and transporting her back to that night. She looked out across the murky Thames water and wished she hadn’t played it so cool that night. She wished she had listened to what Eve was saying, really listened when she had told her “when I try and think of my future I just see your face over and over again”. Every waking moment since that night, Villanelle regretted not pulling Eve close and kissing her. Pressing her lips to Eve’s and telling her with this action and her words, what she really felt. They could have had their happy ending. Maybe, right now, they would be together in Barcelona or Paris, making a better memory of France than the last time they had been there together.

Villanelle pulled the discreet Assassin’s knife she carried with her everywhere and began to scratch a message into the wood on the far side of the bridge railing, so someone would only find it if they went looking for it. Neatly, Villanelle carved a heart about the size of a fifty pence piece. Inside it, she scratched a careful ‘V + E’. Doing this, she was subconsciously hoping that Eve would return here, find it, and come back for her.

“I can’t lose you yet,” she murmured, running her fingers over the heart that contained their initials, “I only just found you.”


	5. The Big Dipper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve finally talks about Villanelle.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Eve said to Natalia nervously. The confirmation of her Inter-rail Pass loaded on the phone screen in her hand after she’d clicked ‘book’.

“I’m so excited for you! I wish I was going Inter-railing for the first time again!”

Eve and Natalia were sitting at a wooden kitchen table in the hostel that was situated in the village near the Giant’s Causeway. Eve had had a great afternoon exploring the Causeway and hiking across the Northern Ireland coastline.

_ This is so unlike me _ , she kept thinking as she clambered over rocks and climbed hills with her thighs burning. Most of her time walking around the Causeway had been spent thinking about her life in the past couple of years. So much had happened, so much had changed. She thought about the early years of her marriage with Niko, how she had been happy but not quite content. Not quite fulfilled in her life. And then along came Villanelle which brought Eve a rush no one else ever had. Looking out to sea, she thought about Bill in Berlin asking her if she’d ever been interested in women. 

_ My whole job revolves around how I am interested in women, _ she had felt like saying. But she had never imagined it to be sexually, not really. Not until Villanelle. She had the dominant qualities the Eve was drawn to, the confidence and the intensity. Eve had always felt more than the ‘usual’ amount of attraction towards women than her peers, but had just never really had the chance to explore it. Niko was the perfect man, really. He was loving, hard-working and kind but he was just that: a man. She felt like a confused teenager, standing there on the edge of the rocks, contemplating her sexuality with the wind blustering around her.

_ I know I’m attracted to men _ , she thought, sure of that fact because of her happy marriage with Niko.

_ But could I see myself in a relationship with a woman?  _ She questioned herself as she stepped over rock pools and pictured faceless women holding her hand or sleeping next to her. 

_ Well, yeah, _ she realised,  _ but I don’t just want any woman. I want… _

Visions of Villanelle’s honey hair splayed out across the pillow next to her made Eve’s stomach lurch. 

“I want to be yours,” she whispered into the wind. She remembered Villanelle’s words echoing around the ruins in Rome last summer. “You’re mine!” Villanelle had shouted. 

“If only that were true,” Eve said quietly and let the wind carry away her secrets.

After booking the ticket for her “solo travelling” adventure (as Natalia called it), the two women sat out on the decking of the hostel with a six pack of beers and chatted to some other travellers. Watching the sun as it set across the ocean was a view Eve hadn’t seen in as long as she could remember. It had been so many years since Eve had taken the time to sit and breathe and  _ live a little _ . She felt calm and enjoyed the company of those around her more than she had anticipated. Tomorrow she was leaving Belfast and flying back to London to start her backpacking travel across Europe. It would be sad saying goodbye to Natalia; she had so much to thank her for. As the evening drew in and darkness swallowed the hostel, Eve and Natalia were the only two left out on the decking.

“I can’t get over the stars,” Eve said to Natalia, in absolute wonder at the blanket of constellations above them. “I didn’t know the sky ever looked like this.”

Natalia hummed in agreement but said nothing and then, after a long pause, asked “why are you travelling, Eve?”

Eve’s head spun a little from the beers and felt she could trust her new friend enough now to tell Natalia more about herself.

“My life was normal, I had a good job. My husband was kind. We were happy,” Eve looked over at Natalia, her tanned skin barely visible through the darkness. Her eyes were clearly fixed on Eve, only a metre away on the other side of the bench.

“I was… bored. And I hate myself for it, for putting him through what I did but…” Eve paused and looked up at the stars and recognised constellations she had seen drawings of.

“My work took over my life but in a really positive way, for me, anyway. It was as though I was being awoken from some sort of slumber, you know?”

Eve saw Natalia nod her understanding but still remained quiet.

“In the end,” Eve paused, “he left me, told me to ‘piss off forever’. I’m to blame for a lot of what happened,” Eve admitted and tried not to go into much detail, but the alcohol was making her lips want to keep moving, spilling too much. 

“I met someone,” Eve said aloud for the first time. “I think I fell in love - I  _ know _ I fell in love,” she corrected herself. “And I got scared and ran… here. I don’t know if I’m ready to… it wouldn’t be a healthy relationship, probably. Not if we got together now. We both need time, I think.”

Eve stumbled on her words. Still Natalia said nothing and Eve carried on admitting everything she had never been able to say to anyone before now.

“We’re made for each other,” Eve breathed. “I just need to know… more about myself, before I… go back there. I don’t know,” she trailed off, suddenly embarrassed she’d shared so much with someone she had met only a day prior. 

“What’s he like?” Natalia asked, breaking her silence.

_ He.  _

“He’s a ‘she’,” Eve said after a moment and heard Natalia’s quiet ‘ohh’ as though telling her she had fallen in love with a woman filled in many gaps to the story. 

“Where is she now?” 

“I wish I knew,” Eve said truthfully.

“Well, wherever she is, she must be damn special,” Natalia popped the cap off the final beer, took a sip and tilted it towards Eve’s bottle. “Don’t let her go, Eve. I made that mistake before. Cheers to her.”

They tapped the necks of their bottles together and Eve smiled.

“To her,” Eve said. “Cheers.”

**********

The next morning, Eve woke early to pack her bag before breakfast and catch her bus to the airport. Natalia slept in the bunk bed below her own and Eve shuffled around as quietly as she could, so as not to wake her. Breakfast was quiet. Eve yawned her way through two bowls of cereal, a croissant and a bacon roll. The croissant made her think of Europe and the journey she was about to embark on. 

_ Maybe I’ll go to Paris,  _ she mused as she picked it apart.  _ Return to the scene of the crime. _

The hostel had a little gift shop where Eve bought two postcards, one with a map of Ireland on the front and the other a photo of the Giant’s Causeway lit up at night, a vast starry sky above it. She sat back down at the dining table and wrote on the back of the Causeway postcard.

_ Natalia, _ she wrote with a blue Biro that someone had left of the table.

_ These last two days, you have helped me more than you could possibly know. I can’t thank you enough, please keep in touch and I’ll let you know how the inter-railing goes! Eve x _

At the bottom, Eve copied out her mobile number and drew the Big Dipper star constellation.

Back in their dorm room, Eve quietly zipped her bag and left the postcard propped up with the picture outwards against Natalia’s backpack on the floor beside her. 

Eve took two buses to the Belfast International Airport and, before she knew it, she was sitting in the window seat of an airplane to London. London seemed like the best place to start her inter-rail trip and, besides, she needed to pack a wider range of clothes if she was going to be spending a few weeks in Europe. At the airport, Eve had posted the postcard she had written to herself sat on the Giant’s Causeway and the one of the map of Ireland she had bought that morning and had written on the bus. 

_ To Eve,  _ she wrote.

_ Last night, I spoke about  _ _ her _ _ to Natalia. She told me not to let her go... I hope I haven’t let her go. Ireland has been the best possible thing to happen to me after all of this. I can’t wait to keep on travelling. Eve x _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 thank all of you lovely people for reading, it means a lot x


	6. V + E

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve is back in London for the night.

Being back in London felt strange. Eve’s week in Ireland seemed to have changed her so much. On the tube to her flat, Eve overheard a conversation between two women discussing a murder on the Waterloo and City Line tracks at Bank Station the week before. 

“Ooh look at that suit!” The first woman said as she looked over the shoulder of her friend who seemed to be reading from a news article. “Damn, I’d let her push me off a platform any day!”

“Imagine doing  _ that _ in  _ heels! _ ” The second added, impressed.

Immediately, Eve was scrambling around her coat pockets for her phone and a quick Google search gave her photos of Villanelle, sure enough in the suit she had been wearing at the ballroom. Eve watched the first CCTV clip she could find and her stomach flipped as she saw Villanelle fighting with a woman whose face was blurred. Her mind whirred at a hundred miles an hour. Why had Villanelle told her she didn’t want to kill anymore and yet did this violent and public murder? Just that evening, Eve had almost _comforted_ Villanelle when she had admitted to her “I’ve killed so many people, Eve”. 

Sat there on the cramped tube, Eve ran her fingers through her hair and remembered their slow dance. Eve let her eyes close momentarily and was transported back to swaying with her body pressed close against Villanelle. Eve touched her thumb and forefinger together and remembered how it felt to have Villanelle’s hand in her own. She breathed deeply and remembered how Villanelle had smelled: her perfume and her newly-washed hair. 

“It’s not on ASOS,” the first woman who had been discussing the news said to her friend, “try Topshop.”

Eve’s eyes snapped open and she was brought out of her glorious daydream and back to reality. 

_ The suit won’t have been from Topshop _ , she thought to herself and remembered the luxurious feel of Villanelle’s suit fabric. Eve looked back down at the news article on her phone and wondered who was protecting Villanelle. What if she was caught for this? It wasn’t like Konstantin or The Twelve would be protecting her now, surely?

It was clearly almost rush hour when Eve was stepping off the tube and climbing the escalators up to ground level. Men and women in suits rushed around her and over took her on the stairs. Eve leaned against the railing as the escalator carried her upwards. She studied the faces of the women around her, most on their phones or looking ahead, bored. Where was Villanelle now? How long had she stayed in London? Was she still in London? 

Across the street from the tube station was a small souvenir shop. Eve slipped inside after pushing through the crowd of office workers. She made her way to one of the many postcard stands. Eve glanced around her and noticed the shopkeeper was talking to some Italian tourists in raincoats. She was thankful for this; Eve didn’t feel like explaining to him that she lived just down the road from here but was buying a postcard. 

_ Why am I even doing this?  _ Eve asked herself as she flicked through the little pictures one by one. Now she had started it, Eve didn’t really want to stop writing these. It gave her a sort of purpose to her travelling and, weirdly, it did actually make her feel a little less lonely, as she had originally hoped.

She flicked through a stack of postcards with famous London landmarks on and came across a photo of the Tower Bridge.

“Can’t not, really, can I?” She muttered to herself looking at the bridge. In her mind, she imagined Carolyn’s smug expression if she knew that Eve wasn’t quite going ‘cold turkey’ from Villanelle. She paid for the postcard with the exact change she had fortunately found in her pocket and briskly left the shop without exchanging more than a ‘thank you’ with the shop assistant. He’d no doubt ask her whereabouts in the U.S she was from and, quite frankly, Eve couldn’t be bothered.

Eve caught a busy double decker to her flat. She stood up on the top deck, swaying with the momentum of the bus. Eve pulled out her phone to distract herself from thinking about Villanelle’s kiss on this very same bus route, only weeks ago. 

At her local Sainsbury’s, she picked up a pint of milk, some fruit for her breakfast and a bottle of red wine for her evening in, along with a jar of pasta sauce. 

Eve hadn’t been nervous about bumping into Villanelle until she pushed open the door of her apartment building. What if she was in her room waiting for her? It definitely felt like something she might do. Eve crossed the foyer to the post boxes and slid the tiny key into her own mailbox to delay going upstairs. For a brief moment, she allowed herself to imagine that Villanelle had written her a letter or posted her something or slipped something in there, like a rose or...

_ A lipstick with a blade in it, _ she thought sadly and lifted the container open.

Nothing. Not even the postcards she had sent to herself. Eve locked it and began to climb the stairs to her flat. She felt tired from the flight. Sitting at the hostel dining room table that same morning eating her croissant felt like days ago. 

Tentatively, Eve pushed open the door to her studio flat. She held her breath, both hoping and fearing that Villanelle might be sitting there at her little breakfast bar or laying on her bed. She wasn’t. Eve blew out a big breath and shut the door behind her. 

“Honey, I’m home,” she said sadly to the empty room.

Eve slipped her backpack off her shoulders, flicked the kettle on and dropped a teabag into her favourite mug. Eve pulled her coat off and leaned against the kitchen counter by the sink, waiting for the kettle to boil. Her flight out of London wasn’t until tomorrow, so Eve only had one night here. 

_ You can do one night, _ she told herself.  _ You’ll be fine.  _

Eve couldn’t quite put her finger on why she so desperately didn’t want to be in London. Obviously, it was to do with Villanelle but there was more to it than that. Eve just didn’t want to be reminded of her life from the past few months. Or even the last few years. She wanted a fresh start and couldn’t think of anything she wanted less than to go back to her old job. Seeing Carolyn shoot Paul from MI6 was something else Eve kept seeing at night when she closed her eyes. She felt the shock in her stomach as she watched Carolyn’s finger pull on the trigger and the dryness in her mouth when she had seen Paul’s body lurch on the sofa when her bullet had hit him in his head… But then Eve felt the comforting warmth of Villanelle’s body on the couch beside her and remembered the brief moment her arm had rested on the cushions behind her. 

The kettle clicked as it boiled and brought Eve back to reality. Steam filled her tiny kitchen. Eve wafted it away with her hands and poured the boiling water onto her tea bag. Eve pulled the milk she had just bought out of the orange carrier bag and tipped some into her tea. It almost burned her mouth when she sipped it but the warmth inside her felt good. She was reminded of returning home from long days out or holidays with Niko and how the first thing they would always do when they got home was make cups of tea.

“No sugar for you,” he would say to her every time, “you’re already sweet enough.” 

Eve smiled sadly at the memory and cupped the hot ceramic mug in her hands. 

Eve unpacked her bag, took her clothes down to the washing machines in the basement of the building and looked in her wardrobe for a bigger bag. She was sure she had one of Niko’s old hiking backpacks in there somewhere. Sure enough, Eve found a big Eagle Creek 40L clam-shell bag, perfect for the trip ahead of her. On the label it read ‘Global Companion’. Eve’s shoulders slumped a little as she realised the only  _ companion _ she had was herself. But then the thought of Natalia’s enthusiasm for solo travel made her smile. 

“You got this, Eve,” she said to herself, feeling more confident. 

Eve watched a bunch of YouTube videos about what to pack for an Inter-railing trip while she folded clothes and even a bikini into her bag. Packing took longer than she had expected and Eve cooked her pasta whilst sorting clothes and toiletries for her trip. She ate it hungrily sitting on the floor leaning against her bed with piles of clothes around her. It was completely dark outside by the time Eve had finished packing and the three glasses of wine she had poured for herself had gone to her head. 

Little specks of rain landed on Eve’s window. They looked like glitter as they reflected the golden light of the streetlight below. Spontaneously, Eve pulled on her parka and left the flat with just her phone, keys and purse. Warm and hazy from the wine, she jogged down the stairs and out into the night air. She pulled her hood close to herself and headed to the main street to wave down a taxi. 

“Tower Bridge,” she said to the driver when he pulled up to let her climb in. The rain was coming down heavier now and Eve was thankful for the shelter of his cab. It wasn’t very economically efficient getting a cab in rainy London but Eve wasn’t thinking too clearly: her head was buzzing with thoughts of the bridge.

“Be safe, love,” the taxi driver said to her as he pulled to the curb on the Tower Bridge. “It’s never the answer.” He looked in the rear view mirror at Eve with kind eyes that wrinkled with lines of Crow’s Feet.

“What?” Eve almost shouted at him, “oh, no, no I’m not - I’m meeting someone,” she laughed a little as she opened the door of the cab. “Thanks, though. You stay - er - safe, too.”

He drove away and left Eve about fifty feet away from where Eve and Villanelle had stood looking out across the water. It was dark, as dark as it had been that night, and Eve felt comforted by this. It was as though Villanelle was still there with her, as though she was chasing her down the street like she had this time last week. Eve quickened her pace to make her body feel exactly what she had felt last week.

At the centre point of the bridge, Eve came to a stop and leaned against the damp railings and held onto the wood, panting. The rainwater pooled beneath her fingers and she ran her hands across the surface. It was slick and Eve’s mouth watered. She wished she had brought the rest of her wine with her. Eve held onto the wood and looked out across the water that reflected the city lights in its glassy black surface. She felt a rough patch of wood on the far side of the railing and leaned over to see what it was.

Her heart might have stopped right there and then. She unknowingly held her breath as she took in what was carved into the wood just inches from her face.

‘V + E’ in a small, neat heart. 

“Villanelle,” she breathed, and touched the heart with her fingertip, “oh, baby.”

Villanelle had been back here. Stood right here where Eve stood and carved this into the wood.

Eve’s eyes stung as she ran her fingers over Villanelle’s graffiti. She looked around, feeling the wood for anything else Villanelle might have written or hidden here but found nothing. 

“Baby,” she said again quietly, as though speaking to Villanelle stood next to her. 

Breathing deeply and pushing back tears, Eve pulled the postcard she had bought earlier out of her pocket along with the blue Biro she had taken from the hostel that morning. She stared at the photo of the Tower Bridge, though didn’t really see it; her heart was beating so fast. Villanelle had been back here. Their encounter meant as much to Villanelle as it did to her.

Sheltering the postcard from the rain that was beginning to come down really heavily now, Eve drew a heart in the centre of the card and the initials ‘V + E’ inside it. She copied out her address next to it and fumbled in her purse for a stamp. Eve didn’t care what onlookers thought of her, all she was focused on was the fact that Villanelle had been here. Eve took a photo of the graffiti and, without a backwards glance, began jogging off the bridge and back towards her flat. She slipped the postcard in the first post box she saw, wishing she was posting it to Villanelle instead of to herself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh honestly I'm having the most fun writing this! Hope you're enjoying it as mush as I am! Feedback is really appreciated x


	7. Gabrielle and her Gay Sister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve is in Paris! This is the first destination of her inter-rail trip.

Eve was excited on the flight from London to Paris though, in some ways, she felt saddened by this feeling. When was the last time she had felt like this? She couldn’t recall a time when she had experienced actual, genuine positive anticipation. Seemingly, all of her thrills in the last few years had come from chasing and being chased by a murderous assassin. 

_ You are so fucked up, _ she laughed at herself, at peace with this.

Eve sat smiling, despite being crammed into an uncomfortable semi-reclined seat. The sight of her travel backpack in the baggage compartment above her, it’s straps dangling and swaying a little with the movement of the aircraft had her giddy. Sure, this might not be a conventional holiday for a single woman of her age and class, but Eve had faith in the hostels she would be staying in over the next few weeks. Meeting Natalia in Belfast had opened her eyes to a whole new world of possibilities and really gave Eve the courage to believe in herself. On the plane, very fortunately in a window seat, Eve didn’t feel like she was running away from London and her ‘old life’: she felt as though she was running  _ towards _ something. Admittedly, she wasn’t one hundred percent sure what that  _ something _ was just yet, but Eve knew that she was making the right choice by going Inter-railing.

Eve wanted to follow the advice she had found online as to where was the best place to start her Europe trip. Everywhere suggested Paris and so that’s where Eve was headed. Going to Paris felt a little like she was cheating from her newfound ‘cold turkey’ life from Villanelle and everything that came with her: the stress, the murders as well as the living in constant fear for her life. Eve gazed out of the window at the fluffy clouds swimming in the bright blue sky. She only planned to spend a couple of days at most in Paris before heading East to Germany and that surely wasn’t going to be too hard, right?

Her plane landed as the sun was beginning to set across the city. The view from the window was incredible and had Eve even more excited for her trip and for all the sights she would see in the next few weeks. As Eve made her way out of the airport, into a taxi and towards her hostel, she couldn’t help but think about the last time she had been in that same spacious atrium. The bright lights of the Paris airport gave Eve flashbacks of stabbing Villanelle and fleeing through that very terminal. She fumbled with her bag straps in the cab and, for a second, thought she could see blood under her fingernails. She scratched at her fingers, suddenly thrown back to that day. What would have happened if she hadn’t stabbed Villanelle in her apartment?  _ It’s okay, I know what I’m doing,  _ Villanelle had said to her and reached gently for Eve’s face. 

_ We would have had sex, dumbass, _ Eve said to herself in the back of the taxi. But, wow, what would  _ that  _ have been like? Eve gazed distractedly out of the window and let her mind wander and transport her back to Villanelle’s old apartment. She remembered so clearly how Villanelle’s bed sheets had felt against her skin, remembered the silky satin beneath her tired body, remembered the movement on the mattress as Villanelle’s weight shifted next to her. Eve pictured an alternate ending to that day as the streets of Paris rushed past the window. Instead of pushing the knife into Villanelle, what if Eve had put the knife down, or - even better - never pressed the knife against Villanelle’s abdomen at all?  _ Someone to watch movies with, _ Villanelle had replied when Eve had asked her what she wanted. They could have done that. They could have fallen asleep together on the King sized mattress and ended all of their cat-and-mouse chasing there. So much hurt would have been saved. Everything that had happened in the last few months wouldn’t have: Hugo wouldn’t have been shot, she wouldn’t have killed Raymond, Niko wouldn’t have been pitch-forked and Kenny… Kenny wouldn’t have died. The list of all the terrible things that had happened to Eve in the last few months alone seemed endless. She felt a lump of guilt rise in her throat and tried to push back the quickly approaching tears. With a lurch, the taxi stopped and she was thrown forwards in her seat. 

“Merci, madame, do you need help with your bag?” The diver asked her in a thick french accent.

“No, no I’m good thanks, er, merci.” Eve hadn’t even considered that she would be experiencing language barriers whilst traveling around Europe. 

_ Dumbass, _ she called herself again and reached for the door handle.

Once Eve had checked into the hostel and locked her bag in her dorm doom, she headed out to find some place to eat. The plane had left Eve feeling a little clammy but she wanted to make the most of her evening in Paris (it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for her to stay for longer than that). Eve Google Mapped her way to a local pizza restaurant and settled herself down at a table for one. Eating in a restaurant alone was new to Eve, too. Years ago, Eve could have never seen herself doing this, wouldn’t have seen the point. 

_ Maybe it’s a good thing I stabbed her, _ she mused as she waited for her meal to arrive. Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

Eve cleaned her plate and washed it down with a pint. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was and how little she had consumed since her pasta the night before on her bedroom floor. 

“Shit,” she said under her breath as she stood up to leave the restaurant.  _ Forgot to pour out the milk. At least there’ll be something living in the apartment to come home to! _

But, tonight as she walked around the streets of Paris at dusk, Eve absolutely didn’t want to go home.

_ I could travel forever, be like Natalia.  _

Eve crossed the street and wandered down the river Seine for an hour or so. River cruises floated by her and she found herself doing that really British thing of waving at people on boats. Everyone around her seemed to be in a couple and Eve let herself wonder what it would be like to Inter-rail with someone else instead of solo. The first face that came to mind was Niko’s, although this definitely wouldn’t have been his thing. Niko was more of a Lake District kind of guy. Eve leaned against the railing and looked up at the Eiffel Tower.

_ Villanelle would come with me, _ she thought.  _ Villanelle would love this.  _

**********

The next morning, Eve sat with a group of Spanish backpackers while she ate her breakfast. One of them was a thirty-ish year-old tanned man called Diego. He took a liking to Eve straight away and offered her some of the scrambled eggs he had made. She was starving and accepted them gladly. 

“We are here until Friday,” he told her while she hungrily ate his delicious eggs, “do you want to come out with us today?”

Eve shovelled in another fork full of eggs on toast to give her time to think.

If she didn’t go out with Diego and co., Eve would probably spend the day travelling in the direction of Munich, fleeing Paris as quickly as possible. She knew she couldn’t trust herself alone in Paris with the temptation of going to find Villanelle’s old apartment. Perhaps hanging out with a big group would be a good distraction for Eve, plus she could really do with some respite from public transport. Eve swallowed the eggs.

“Yeah!” She said, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, “Thanks, I’d love to, what's the plan?”

“The Musee du Louvre,” Diego smiled as he sat down with his own plate of food, “have you been before?”

“Oh, yeah, but a long time ago,” she tried to match his smile but felt pained by the memory of her last visit there with Niko. They must have only been married two or three years back then. Eve felt annoyed at herself for having more of a connection to Paris with Villanelle than with her husband.  _ Ex-husband.  _

Diego, Eve and the four other Spanish backpackers took an early bus to the Lourve. Walking around inside the art gallery, Eve couldn’t help but imagine how Villanelle would behave in a place like this. Eve stared blurrily at some old art and came to the conclusion that Villanelle would hate it here. She’d be playing up, touching stuff she wasn’t supposed to or being intentionally loud and annoying all the art fans. Eve smiled at that thought and walked up a flight of stairs away from Diego and the others. Eve found herself in a huge gallery space and blinked a few times to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. On the centre of the vast white wall ahead of her was a large painting of a topless woman squeezing the nipple of another topless woman. Eve raised her eyebrows and held back her laughter.

_ Art is weird. _

She made her way over to the information by the painting and read that the piece was called ‘Gabrielle d’Estrées and one of her sisters’.

“Ha!” Eve let out a burst of laughter. In her mind, she heard Bill’s voice when he used to joke that “incest is the best!”.

Eve stared at the painting for a while longer before heading onto the next room. In the giftshop, Eve scanned the postcards for one of Gabrielle d’Estrées and her sexy sister. As she waited in the courtyard for Diego and his friends, Eve pulled out her pen and scribbled onto the postcard:

_ To Eve, _

_ Saw this in the Louvre today. Apparently it’s about pregnancy but it looked pretty gay from where I was standing. Ha! Anyway, it made me think of Bill!  _

_ Eve x _

“Pretty gay,” Eve muttered to herself and gazed across the courtyard. A tall woman with a godly figure in a long, tight white dress walked past her elegantly. 

“Pretty gay,” Eve said again with a smile. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha ha, thanks for reading! Villanelle update chapter coming soon! x


	8. Laundry in the Czech Republic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve travels east across Europe pretty aimlessly, until...

The next two weeks were some of the busiest, most action-packed of Eve’s adult life. She ended up staying in Paris for another couple of days and even took a trip up the Eiffel Tower, where she wrote a postcard with a photo of it on to herself at the top:

_ To Eve, _

_ Last night after the Lourve, I stupidly went looking for Villanelle’s old flat. I know I shouldn’t have but, honestly, I miss that sexy, arrogant, crazy, Russian assassin  _

She paused and considered whether writing about an ‘assassin’ on a postcard was a bad idea. The view from the Eiffel Tower was incredible and Eve’s whole body ached with how much she missed Villanelle. 

_ ‘Assassin’ could just be an inside joke, _ Eve decided, and carried on writing.

_ and I wanted to find a bit of her to hold onto. I’m up the Eiffel Tower right now. Pretty cool but damn, I wish she was here. _

_ Eve. _

It was true, Eve did want Villanelle there with her. She’d had a few drinks with Diego the night before that resulted in him leaning in to kiss her. 

“Whoa!” Eve said loudly and heads in the bar turned to look at her. “What are you doin-?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Diego stammered and backed away from Eve who was pressed against the bar.

Eve had nothing against Diego. In truth, he had been nothing but nice to her. She could have easily leaned into kiss him and been swept off her feet in the passionate throes of a backpacker romance. But something within Eve had made her pull away; a voice in the back of her head told her  _ if you kiss him, whatever you and Villanelle had is over. _ Eve left Diego at the bar without much explanation and went on a fast paced walk around the city. She found herself walking by the Siene and then down some backroads. A courtyard appeared in her vision when she rounded a corner. 

“Shit,” Eve breathed, recognizing that this was the route she had taken when she had fled Villanelle’s apartment after stabbing her all those months ago. Before Eve could stop herself or remind herself how much of a bad idea this was, Eve was crossing the courtyard in huge strides and running in the direction she thought Villanelle’s old flat was. 

And suddenly, there it was. At the end of the street, Eve caught sight of the building that had once been Villanelle’s home. Eve swayed at the sight of it and leaned against a brick wall to her left. The memory of those intense hours that had begun in that building hit her like a Tsunami wave.

_ Hands on something flat, _ she told herself as the beers and the spontaneous running caught up with her. She swayed. Retched. And threw up.

“Pathetic,” she mumbled and spat watery beer vomit onto the pavement. Luckily, it was dark so no one was around to witness her mortifying public spew.

For a brief moment when she had been running across the courtyard, Eve had considered trying to go into the apartment building, imagined climbing the stairs and… and then what? There was no way that could end well. So here Eve stood, wiping sick from her mouth and telling herself that Paris was a terrible idea and should have left yesterday or flown straight to Munich instead. Eve stepped over her sick puddle and walked, disheartened, back in the direction of the hostel.

The next morning, Eve felt fragile from her night of drinking and pained from her body's reaction to Villanelle’s flat. She checked out of the hostel as late as she was allowed and began her journey to Munich, Germany. 

Germany came as a very welcomed distraction for Eve. By her second day in Munich, she was really beginning to love the city. It was far enough away from Berlin that she didn’t have to think about what had gone on the last time she was there. Before leaving Munich and taking some cross-country trains towards Prague in the Czech Republic, Eve picked out a postcard of the cityscape to write on the train. 

_ To Eve,  _ she wrote, her hand a little shaky from the train’s rattling momentum.

_ Munich is apparently the beer capital of the world and I’ll second that! Had a great couple of evenings in the hostel I stayed in by the River Isar. My bikini came in handy - did a little sunbathing by it with some Australian backpackers yesterday!  _

_ Eve x _

Eve had never been to Prague before and as soon as her train pulled into the city station, she wished she had. The architecture was beautiful. Eve stayed at a hostel that was right next to the main city square. She’d gotten to the point where her underwear and clothes couldn’t be re-worn any more times and so had to do some laundry. With her Sainsbury’s carrier bag of dirty clothes slung over her arm, Eve made her way down to the laundry room on her first night in Prague. It was nine in the evening on a Saturday night and so Eve found herself down there alone. The hostel was buzzing with people heading on nights out and tonight, Eve just wasn’t in the mood. She was tired and thought that perhaps booking an Airbnb for the night would have been a better idea instead of a shared dorm. Nevertheless, Eve filled a machine with her clothes, inserted her coins and sat on a saggy leather sofa in front of it as it whirred around. Eve let out a big sigh and let her shoulders relax. London and Villanelle on the bridge seemed like a lot longer than two weeks ago.

_ I suppose that’s a good thing _ , Eve though to herself as she sunk into the sofa and tucked her feet under herself.  _ I wanted a distraction and a distraction is what I’ve got!  _ Eve really was enjoying her time Inter-railing, despite being too exhausted to socialise or explore this evening. She’d made time to text Natalia and thank her for the advice and inspiration; Eve still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that she was travelling across Europe on her own. 

_ I’m a solo backpacker now, _ she thought to herself with a smug smile and looked around the room,  _ and I’m doing my laundry in Prague. _

Eve pulled a postcard of Prague’s famous Clock out of her jeans pocket along with her blue Biro. 

_ To Eve, _

_ I’m in Prague doing my laundry - how cool is that? Washing clothes, seeing sights, making memories.  _

Her pen hovered over the piece of card balanced on her knee. That afternoon, Eve had seen a woman that looked just like Villanelle did from the back. Eve knew, after a couple of seconds of her heart beating too fast, that it wasn’t Villanelle but let herself fantasize that it was anyway. She walked closer towards the woman and followed her down the sunny cobbled street. Eve felt her fingers twitch and her mouth begin to water the closer she got to the woman. The night of the bridge came to the front of Eve’s mind.

_ I should have kissed her, _ Eve thought, her eye’s on the exposed neck of the woman.  _ I should have just pulled her close and kissed her- _

The woman turned a corner and Eve stopped in the centre of the pavement. 

“Or you could have kissed me,” she said sadly to the woman walking away from her.

Eve squinted down at the postcard; the dim light in the laundry room made it hard to see. Eve held back from writing ‘I thought I saw you today.’

_ You aren’t writing to Villanelle,  _ she told herself. Eve remembered Konstantin’s deep voice echoing around the tea room in Russia when he had said to Villanelle ‘don’t break my heart’.

‘Don’t break mine’ Villanelle had said to Konstantin, and then ‘you either’ she had said to Eve.

“I think you broke my heart,” Eve said to the postcard and simply signed it with an ‘ _ E x’ _

**********

The week that followed took Eve through Slovakia,

_ To Eve,  _

_ Didn’t stay in Slovakia long - something in the accent made me think of Villanelle and I just couldn’t hack it.  _

_ E x _

then onto Budapest in Hungary,

_ Hey Eve, _

_ The views from the train windows look just like Poland. I could almost hear Niko telling me ‘rusz dupe i do lozka!” the time we visited his family home there, about a year after we married. Glad to be in the city now. Haven’t heard from him. Or anyone. Maybe I’m lonely, I don’t know. _

_ Wish you were here, _

_ Eve x _

Eve copied her address onto the postcard with a sigh. Next, she had planned to take the train to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, but something inside of her held her back.

_ I could go to Vienna. _

Vienna wasn’t so far from where she was now and Vienna was the first place she had ever heard about Villanelle. Sitting outside a sunny cafe, Eve looked across the courtyard, and cast her mind back to the morning she had been called into work after Bill’s birthday party. What if Carolyn hadn’t assigned Eve to the case? Eve felt deeply saddened at the thought of never encountering Villanelle. Sure, she had caused her a lot of trouble and heartache, but Villanelle was - Eve rolled her eyes at the thought - her soulmate of some sort. In the most unconventional way. In a bad way, a good way, a disgustingly sick way. Eve and Villanelle’s lives were just _ meant  _ to cross. Soulmates or not, Eve couldn’t resist giving into the temptation of returning to Vienna: where her obsession with the sexy, arrogant, crazy, Russian assassin had begun.

_ Vienna, _ Eve decided,  _ fuck it.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> howdy! thanks for reading :) Eve's gonna go to a couple more countries while she's in Europe... and I was thinking I could write some of you guys in as characters she meets and hangs out with? Leave me a comment with your name, the country you're from and maybe a bit of a description with what you look like and I will write some of you into the next few chapters!


	9. Villanelle's Bathroom Floor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle is still having withdrawal from Eve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Little warning to anyone who has a sick phobia that Villanelle is sick at the beginning of this x

Villanelle heaved. Her body was folded over her toilet bowl, her hands gripping the sides for support as she vomited violently. Since coming back to Barcelona, she had been coping even worse than she had in London in the first few days that followed her and Eve’s evening on the Tower Bridge. She retched again and threw up mostly water into the toilet. It was three in the morning and her house was in total darkness. She’d been asleep until the sudden reflex to vomit had awoken her and she had run to the bathroom.

_ Why?  _ She thought to herself with a moan that echoed around the toilet bowl, and wondered why she had been sick so much in the last week. Villanelle spat into the toilet and flushed. Exhausted, she tipped her toothbrush out of its holder, shakily filled it with water and took small sips as she leaned back against the bath. Her apartment was silent.

Whenever she was sick, Villanelle longed to be a child again so she could be taken care of. She was shaking and her silky pyjama cropped top and shorts sticking to her clammy skin. Villanelle let her head fall back against the bath and closed her eyes. She recalled only a few weeks ago when she had sat here and had her left bicep sewn up by Dasha. That day had been one of the hardest days Villanelle had gone through in her adult life: everything in her whole world had seemed to have come crashing down on her that day. It was the day she had realised that killing and being an assassin just  _ wasn’t worth the cash _ . She had sat here on this floor feeling broken. Dasha had given her some sort of comfort, and the two of them had shared pizza. In her memory, Villanelle could suddenly smell the cheesy odours that had filled her apartment that night and she swallowed more sips of water in an attempt to stop her from throwing up what was left in her stomach.

That night she had been comforted by Dasha, though in Dasha’s own psychopathic way. The small act of tending to her injury and ordering a takeaway had meant so much to Villanelle, though she didn’t like to admit it. Acts of kindness weren’t common in Villanelle’s life. She tried to think about when anyone had been selflessly kind to her in the last few years but couldn’t focus on anything except Eve’s face in her mind.

_ Eve would be kind to me,  _ she thought as she breathed big gulps of air, _ even though she probably wouldn’t be nice to anyone else.  _ Villanelle understood Eve and Eve understood Villanelle. So why were they both trying to be apart?

“Eve,” she murmured into the darkness. “I need you, baby.”

Villanelle slumped against the bath and lay on the cold, ornate tiles of her expensive bathroom. Relief washed over her when her face, slick with sweat, made contact with the icy tiles. Villanelle felt painfully alone. She had begun to question everything about herself since her break up with Eve. Because it was a break up: they had said goodbye, walked away and Villanelle was broken. The golden floor shimmered as it reflected the light of the hallway. 

_ What is the point of having nice things if I have no one to share them with? _ Villanelle shocked herself with this question as it fleeted across her mind. She thought for a moment and came to the conclusion that, no, she didn’t want to share her nice things with someone: she wanted to share them with Eve. She wanted Eve in a way she had never wanted anyone before. The days of buying her expensive gifts to impress her were over; she wanted to be equal to Eve now. Villanelle remembered the time she had opened her door to Eve back in London last summer when they had been working for MI5 together. _ ‘Hi, partner,’ _ she had said to Eve as she pushed open the door to find Eve standing there. 

_ I want you behind every door that I open,  _ she thought, sadly. With the vision of Eve’s perfect face in her mind, Villanelle slipped into unconsciousness and fell asleep on the cold floor. 

Hours later, Villanelle awoke still face down on the bathroom floor. She was stiff, cold and shivering. With all the strength she could muster, she slowly dragged herself to her feet and down the corridor to her bedroom, hunched over and using the wall for support. Villanelle was surprised to see sunlight flooding through her windows but was too exhausted to stay awake so she climbed slowly into her bed. She was hungry and dehydrated and felt like absolute rock bottom, emotionally and physically. Next to her bed was a pint of water that she drank in big thirsty gulps, wincing as it fell into her empty stomach. She pulled her phone out from under her sheets; YouTube was still playing a sleep meditation video that she had used last night to distract her from her ever-present thoughts of Eve. Into her search bar, she typed ‘heartbroken and sick?’ and a flood of articles loaded instantly on the white screen. She had to close her eyes briefly to steady herself and hold back the new wave of nausea this brought. Headlines like ‘Is it normal to get sick after a break up?’, ‘This Is What Happens To Your Body When You Suffer A Broken Heart’ and ‘10 Ways Heartbreak Affects You Physically’ all made Villanelle’s head spin. She clicked on a few articles and learned that her brain thought that it was experiencing physical pain and her body was going through genuine withdrawal as though she was suddenly clean of drugs. 

“Oh, I miss when I was just a psychopath,” she said as tears began to blur her vision. Villanelle laid back onto the pillow and let herself drift back into sleep, her exhausted body winning the battle between body and mind.

**********

Three days later, Villanelle was feeling slightly better. She’d managed forty-eight hours without being sick and was able to eat more than just dry toast. It was a sunny afternoon in Barcelona and she sat on her patio with a jug of icy water (even the sight of the Champagne bottles in her fridge made her feel nauseous, so she was sticking with water until she felt completely better). The view of the Spanish countryside on the far side of the city was amazing. Villanelle liked this apartment a lot, but not as much as she would have done two years ago, when her standards of life were lower because she had never heard the name ‘Eve Polastri’. Refilling her glass of water, Villanelle wondered what her life would have been like if Konstantin had never told her about Eve.

“Easier,” she sighed and sucked on an ice cube.

Sitting there on her porch, looking out at the beautiful view, Villanelle made up her mind before the ice cube in her mouth had even melted.

_ I’m gonna go get my girl, _ she decided and whispered, “I can't live without you” into the breeze.

The quote  _ ‘do what is right, not what is easy’, _ came to her mind.

“So what if we consume each other before we get old?” she said quietly with her eyes closed, imagining the sun shining through her eyelids was Eve’s godly glow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this listening to 'It's not living if it's not with you' and 'I couldn't be more in love' by The 1975... I'm thinking about putting together a lil playlist fro this fic if anyone's interested? A lot of my insp comes from songs! Thanks for all the lovely comments xx


	10. A Room with a View

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve is in Vienna. She's booked a hotel tonight for some privacy...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops my hands slipped on the keys and now this is nsfw ha ha watch out :)

Eve’s journey from Budapest to Vienna was unexpectedly easy and uneventful. There were direct trains between the cities every couple of hours and she arrived there mid-day without any hassle. Eve climbed up the train station stairs, trying to work out which sign pointed her towards the exit. She’d never been to Vienna before, though had done enough research on the city when she had learned about Villanelle’s kill there that it felt like she had. The train station was vast and modern and it took her the best part of half an hour to find her way out and towards the city centre.

It was an overcast sort of day but Eve’s mood was high. Being here felt like she was embarking on some sort of nostalgic adventure into her relationship with Villanelle. She crossed a busy road and found herself wandering somewhat aimlessly down cobbled, high walled side streets. Tiny cafes and busy little tourist shops were everywhere she looked and Eve had to buckle the hip strap of her backpack to stop it from bumping into people. A tiny window glittering with fairy lights was situated between two little cafes and Eve peered inside. It looked like a bookshop and, with no other place she immediately had to get to, Eve ducked under the low door frame and slipped inside. It was quiet except for a fan whirring in the corner blowing cool air, a relief from the busy, humid street she had come from.

She smiled at the old man on a chair behind the till. 

“Servus,” he said to her with a nod. Eve smiled again, annoyed at herself for not even bothering to learn a single word of Austrian before coming here. 

She subconsciously made her way towards what looked like the True Crime section and scanned the spines a little distractedly when a name she recognised caught her eye: Martha Marek, the serial killer from Vienna. Eve slid the book off the shelf and flipped it open. Whatever language it was - though presumably Austrian - Eve couldn’t tell. She opened the book in the middle and looked at the photographs of Martha smiling out at her in black and white. Martha Marek’s case was particularly interesting to Eve because of how she had killed for money. She looked at Martha’s dark eyes and thought about Villanelle’s hazel ones. 

_ Sure, Villanelle kills for money but not like this _ , Eve thought and reminded herself of Martha’s murders: how she had poisoned a lot of her family members purely for insurance pay-outs to support her lavish and hedonistic lifestyle. Eve also recalled Martha chopping off her husband’s leg with an axe. 

“Shit,” she breathed as she realised the overlapping elements of Martha's story and her own: an axe murder and a girl that loves money.

Eve slipped the book back between it’s fellow copies and swiftly left the store. The busy street came as a relief and she carried on down the street a little dazed. 

_ You're fucking sick, Eve, _ she told herself.  _ What do you think you're doing, going on a tour of Villanelle's assassinations?  _

But, yes, that was exactly what Eve had planned to do. On the train to Austria, she had loosely planned visits to the countries where Villanelle had killed. With the rattling of the train carriages making her thoughts hazy, it had felt like a good idea, even a fun thing to do. Although now she was here in Vienna, in the hometown of Martha Marek the money-hungry serial killer, Eve didn't know if using her inter-rail pass as an excuse to visit cities where Villanelle had murdered people was a good idea. 

_ But fuck it, and fuck Carolyn and her cold turkey, _ Eve decided and pulled out her phone to search for directions to her hotel. Eve had treated herself to a hotel while she was in Vienna instead of a hostel. She wanted to be focused on Villanelle and let herself be absorbed in her feelings for the woman and being in a hotel gave her the most privacy to do that. 

Everything about Vienna excited Eve. She walked down roads and alongside the river thinking of nothing but Villanelle. She loved that Villanelle hadn’t known about her when she had killed the politician here. Eve seemed to have every detail about Villanelle's Vienna assassination memorised and it wasn't difficult to track down the place where it had happened. She recalled Carolyn telling her about the Russian politician Victor Kedrin and that his femoral artery had been sliced open as he was leaving a sushi restaurant near Stephansplatz. Very intentionally, Eve’s hotel was across the square from the restaurant so she could see it from her bedroom window. 

On the day she arrived, Eve visited the sushi restaurant. She still had her bag with her so didn’t go inside but her mouth watered at the thought of Villanelle killing someone here. That evening, in her hotel room, Eve ordered a take-out and ate it by the window, looking down at the restaurant front. It was dark out and street lamps lit up as she ate her dinner. What was it that made her so excited about this place? She thought back to the early hours of the investigation and recalled how she had instinctively known that the assassin had been a woman. Eve had always been interested in female killers, from how they were 50% more likely to kill a relative and 35% more likely to murder for money than men. But what was it, specifically, about Villanelle? What was it about that particular Russian Assassin that had Eve’s mind totally consumed and her throbbing between her thighs? 

_ Everything, _ Eve decided. _ It’s everything about her. _

Eve looked down at the restaurant and slid her hand between her jeans and her underwear. She slowly moved her fingers up and down the cotton imagining what Villanelle would have looked like that evening she had stabbed Victor Kedrin. She remembered Kasia Molkovska, the politician’s girlfriend, describing the faceless killer as ‘flat chested’ and Eve began to rub herself in wide circles at the thought of Villanelle’s exposed chest. It surprised her in that moment that she had never actually seen Villanelle naked. Eve felt that she knew so much personal information about Villanelle, it was as though she had already seen her in her most vulnerable state; however, Eve couldn’t imagine Villanelle feeling very vulnerable if she was naked around Eve. She would be able to read Eve like a book and know that just the sight of her body would drive Eve wild and tease her intolerably.

Eve pulled off her jeans and sat back down in the chair, still by the window. She continued rubbing herself through her black underwear and imagined what Villanelle looked like naked. Eve kept the view of the sushi restaurant in her eye line as she began to feel herself becoming wet. She recalled the details of the kill and felt her body react as though she was watching it happen in front of her: Villanelle undoubtedly in expensive designer clothes stabbing the man expertly as they walked past each other. Eve took off her underwear, slightly damp at the gusset, and lay diagonally across her double bed. She pictured Villanelle walking into the room, a bloody blade in her hand as though she had just killed the politician and come straight here. Eve moaned and undressed Villanelle in her imagination. She slid her fingers up and down her wet folds and closed her eyes, picturing that what she was feeling was Villanelle’s tongue between her thighs.

“Villanelle,” she breathed, her fingers working faster. 

As clear as though she was in the room, Eve heard Villanelle’s cool voice in her ears.  _ Come for me, baby, _ Villanelle instructed her.

In her imagination, Eve watched Villanelle crawl up from between her legs and on top of Eve. Eve longed to feel the pressure of Villanelle’s tall, slender body against her own and ached for the feel of her hips being held down in Villanelle’s strong hands. Eve threw a hand up into her messy curls that were splayed out across the white pillow. Something inside her knew that Villanelle would love to pull at her hair so she grabbed a fist full with her left hand and kept on touching herself with her right.

“Villanelle,” she moaned again, louder this time. 

_ I want to be inside of you,  _ she heard Villanelle say to her confidently and pushed two fingers into herself with ease. _ You feel so good, Eve. _

Eve was slick with her own wetness and pumped her fingers in and out of herself, her eyes squeezed tightly shut so she could immerse herself in her visions of Villanelle fucking her. She pictured the bloody knife in Villanelle’s long-fingered hand, saw her tracing it across the skin of her abdomen and honey coloured hair falling into her face as Villanelle teased her with the blade. Eve could almost feel the knife’s sharp tip against her belly and watched as Villanelle expertly pulled the cool blade up to her neck. Eve felt her orgasm building at the thought of her holding the knife to her throat and held her breath as though being choked by Villanelle. 

In the way she always did when she masturbated, Eve pushed her fingers into herself again right before she climaxed and felt her build-up of fluids gush out of her and splash onto her hand noisily. She threw her head back and groaned with pleasure and slowed down her strokes, imagining the slick motion between her legs was made by Villanelle’s tongue lapping up her wetness. 

“Oh, baby, I wish you were here,” she rolled onto her side and out of the wet patch she had made on the sheets. More than ever, Eve wanted to speak to Villanelle that night. She thought about how wild Villanelle would be driven if she received a text right now from Eve saying something along the lines of ‘hey, I just made myself squirt at the thought of you fucking me’.

Eve remembered Villanelle telling her ‘I masturbate about you a lot’ and smiled.

_ Me too, Villanelle. Me too.  _


	11. Never Have I Ever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve has a few drinks on a night train and comes to a realisation...

“Fucks sake!” Eve cursed under her breath as the train doors slid shut in front of her. She bent over panting with her hands on her knees to steady herself. Somehow, she had managed to almost sprint across the busy central train station in Vienna, Wien Hauptbahnhof, and yet still managed to miss her night train. 

“Argh!” She shouted, annoyed at herself, and began to pull her hair out of its messy bun and impatiently drag her fingers through it. The next train wasn’t for another hour; it was already eight thirty in the evening, getting darker by the minute, and Eve wasn’t keen on hanging around an unfamiliar station alone at night. She looked around her for a seat and noticed a woman with wavy brown hair a little further up the platform who looked as frustrated as she did.

“You missed it too?” the girl called to Eve with a wave.

“Yeah,” Eve grumbled and walked over towards the unoccupied bench between them.

The woman sat down next to her, “when’s the next one, d’you know?” she asked.

“An hour,” Eve sighed, unclipping her bag and setting it down between her legs. “Half nine.”

The girl nodded and leaned back in her seat.

“Where are you heading?” Eve asked her, noticing for the first time how beautiful her eyes were. They were a sort of greenish brown and really stood out against her dark skin.

“Venice,” she said and pulled out a bag of pastries and offered one to Eve.

“Oh, no way, me too!” Eve smiled, took a croissant and thanked the girl. Her stomach groaned at that exact moment and the girl let out a laugh at the sound.

“I’m Serena, by the way.”

“Eve.”

The two women sat eating their croissants for a minute or two in comfortable silence before Serena asked Eve about her time in Vienna and, suddenly, Eve felt herself talking a lot. She was probably oversharing but couldn’t stop herself; she hadn’t really spoken to anyone since Budapest. They chatted for about twenty minutes and Eve even found herself laughing, almost uncontrollably, despite being in the company of a complete stranger.

“Hey, I’ll go get some coffees,” Serena said, standing up while Eve was still laughing, her eyes watering at a story Serena had told her about her time travelling in Greece.

“How can you still say Greece is one of your favourite countries after _ that _ happened?” Eve wheezed.

“It’s all about making memories, Eve,” she winked and backed away towards the coffee trailer, “latte?”

“Please, yeah.”

Eve’s cheeks hurt from smiling.

In what felt like no time at all, the next train pulled into the station and Eve and Serena climbed onto it together. They shuffled along the dimly-lit corridor, searching for an empty carriage. 

“This one’s empty,” Serena called over her shoulder.

Eve followed her inside; she hadn’t ridden on a night train before and wasn't sure of the etiquette so followed Serena’s lead. There were two bunk beds in the room but all four beds were empty. The train pulled out of the station with a whirr.

“Looks like we’ve got this one to ourselves,” Serena said as she slid the carriage compartment door closed.

It was still early and Eve was really enjoying Serena’s company so she was glad when Serena suggested they have a drink. 

“Friday night!” Eve said as her answer. 

“Ace,” Serena grinned and went to look for the food carriage. 

“Umm, never have I ever... been to Ikea,” Eve said slowly and Serena looked shocked.

“Never?” She laughed and took a swig of her beer.

“Never,” Eve nodded proudly.

It was eleven at night and the two women had been drinking since they’d boarded the train at half nine. Eve was having a great time. She was so glad to have run into Serena on the platform and was, for the first time ever, thankful to have missed her train.

“Uhh, never have I ever... slept with a woman?” Serena asked Eve nervously.

Eve felt her eyes bulge. 

_ Well, that took a turn, _ Eve thought to herself, realising that perhaps Serena was flirting with her and that they were no longer playing Never Have I Ever. She took a big gulp from her bottle.

“You’re gay?” Eve asked her as nonchalantly as possible, although her voice was an octave higher than usual.

“Yeah, are you?” Serena looked nervous.

Eve was stunned. She didn’t know what to say. How  _ did _ Serena know?

_ Am I gay?  _ She thought, suddenly questioning whether ‘gay’ was a label she would ever use for herself.

“I’ve - er - got a girlfriend, yeah,” Eve said slowly, speaking down to the bottle in her hands instead of looking Serena in the eye. “But, before her, I’d never-”

“Been with a woman before?” Serena asked excitedly, “oh, I love that! I love when people have no idea they’re gay and then the right person comes along. It’s sweet, she must be special.”

Eve suppressed a grin that was threatening to break a little too wide across her face. “She is.”

Eve then dived into telling Serena all about her girlfriend, ‘V’, though kept the facts loose and told her that they had ‘met at work’ instead of saying ‘she’s a murderous assassin and I ran a team at MI6 to track her down’. She found herself smiling whenever the words ‘my girlfriend’, ‘we’ and ‘V’ left her lips.

For just those short few minutes on that overnight train to Venice, Eve felt  _ normal. _ Talking about Villanelle as her lover felt _ right _ and uncomplicated. When Serena fell asleep in the bunk adjacent to hers, Eve lay in the dark and thought about Villanelle some more, still pretending to herself that they were in fact  _ girlfriends.  _ The swaying momentum of the train and the beers had Eve feeling relaxed and hazy.

As quietly as she could - so as not to wake Serena - Eve pulled a blank postcard of Vienna out of her jacket pocket and her blue pen from Ireland. She propper herself up on her left elbow and angled the card to catch some of the moonlight shining in through the carriage window. 

_ To Eve,  _ she wrote, her hand a little wobbly from the train or the beers or both. 

_ I went to Vienna because - well, you know why - but I ended up having a really great time ;) I’m on a night train to Venice right now, and I’ve spent the whole evening talking about ‘my girlfriend, V’. It felt good. Really good.  _

_ E x _

Eve fell asleep pretending she was on a train on her way to meet Villanelle. The vision of Villanelle waiting for her at the train platform brought tears to her tired eyes. Happy or sad tears, Eve didn’t know: all she knew was that she didn’t just want Villanelle as her fictional girlfriend, she wanted her for real.

The next morning, Eve and Serena sleepily took turns to use the tiny sink to brush their teeth, gathered their things and climbed off the train just as the sun was rising.

“So, where are you staying?” Serena asked as they stepped onto the platform of the central Venice station. Eve had been a little distracted looking around for Villanelle, though she knew she wouldn’t actually be there waiting for her.

“Oh, ah, change of plan, I think,” she said and smiled at what she was about to say, “I think I’m gonna go to Barcelona and surprise my girlfriend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is for @SerenaL ! Thanks to everyone who requested to be in this fic, I'll write you in too soon. Do you want me to write more Villanelle POV chapters? I realise there have only been a couple.. thanks again for reading!! x


	12. Calling Carolyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve has made up her mind: she is going to see Villanelle. But where does she live?

Eve lay in Parco Piraghetto, a sunny park in Venice, the first she had come across after leaving the train station. Resting her head and neck on her backpack, she looked up at the early morning blue sky through the trees. Knowing that she had tried, really tried, to be apart from Villanelle and yet still chose to go back to her made her feel content. There was no point trying to delude herself into believing she could live a life without Villanelle in it anymore. For better or for worse, she needed her back. Eve stretched out her toes in her trainers and indulged in how relaxed she felt here with the Italian morning sun, warming her from the outside in. She’d picked up an iced latte from the station and sipped it through its long green straw. Bliss. 

Eve closed her eyes and let her mind wander back to that night on the bridge she had been suppressing for the last month. Her new mindset about Villanelle made her see that night in an entirely new light. Saying goodbye had been hard because-

“We were never supposed to say goodbye,” she finished her realisation aloud.

This past month had been important for her to know, really know, this fact.

Eve pulled her phone out of her pocket. Her fingers ached knowing she didn’t have a number to text or call Villanelle. She missed her. Missed her cocky smirk, her sarcasm and-

_ -the way she looks at me, _ Eve thought.

Eve brought Barcelona up on Google Maps and zoomed in aimlessly. It had only just occurred to her after she had said goodbye to Serena that she didn’t actually have Villanelle’s address. A pang in her gut reminded her that she couldn’t ask Kenny for help getting it because he was dead. 

For a few moments, she sipped her cold coffee and remembered Kenny’s grinning face.

Should she just risk it and go to Barcelona anyway even though she didn’t know where Villanelle was? Or wait until she had her address? Eve wasn’t feeling as relaxed as she had been a few minutes ago and started tugging her hair out of it’s clip like she always did when she was stressed. 

Who could she ask for help to get Villanelle’s address? Dasha was dead, Konstantin would be deep in a cave hiding somewhere and Carolyn was, well, Carolyn was a possibility. She wouldn’t be keen on helping Eve, that was for sure, but she was the only hope Eve had. 

Eve’s thumb hovered over Carolyn’s number in her contacts.

“Fingers crossed,” she breathed and hit the green call button.

After only two rings, Carolyn picked up the phone.

“Eve, what a delight. Rumour has it you’re hostel hopping. How is that treating you?”

Eve rolled her eyes. Of course she knew. What doesn’t Carolyn Martens know?

_ Let’s just hope she has Villanelle’s address, _ Eve thought, and forced herself to speak cheerily and in high spirits and as though she was calling for more than just information.

“Hi, Carolyn,” she said, her accent coming out weirdly more American than usual. “Yeah, you’re right with that. Venice today, Austria last night. Keeping busy.” She paused but Carolyn’s end of the call remained silent. “How are you,” Eve asked, a little tentatively. 

“Geraldine has left so lord knows I’ve never been better.”

“Good, that’s good to hear,” Eve pushed the question out of her mouth sooner than she had planned, “Listen, Carolyn, what’s Villanelle’s address?”

“Ha! I should have known you’d be calling for want of information about your favourite little assassin.”

Eve rolled her eyes.

“Eve, has the cold-turkey approach not been working out for you?”

Eve clenched her jaw and bit back a nasty retort. Carolyn was her only hope of getting to Villanelle. 

“Please,” she said quietly.

“I know how it is, Eve. With the Russian assassins. I’ve been there and - what is it they say? - got the tshirt. She’s living in Barcelona, last I heard.”

“She is, yeah,” Eve felt herself smiling.  _ This is working.  _

“But I’m afraid I don’t know her precise whereabouts,” Carolyn sounded genuinely perturbed.

“Do you think you could please find out?” Eve winced as she said it. “Please,” she said again.

“Do you think this is true love?” Carolyn asked, very matter-of factly. “You believe this is love, now, and not just your unexplainable fascination of female killers?” 

Eve’s cheeks burned and she was glad Carolyn couldn’t see her. She nodded and whispered, “yes.”

“Yes, I thought as much. It does seem that the universe wants the two of you to be together at least. And who am I to go against the work of the universe? God?” Carolyn chuckled to herself down the phone. “Let me see what I can do for you, Eve. I’ll call you later.”

Eve let out a big breath in relief, “thank you, Carolyn. So much. Thank you-”

“Love is important, Eve,” Carolyn interrupted what would have been a long speech of gratitude. “It is important we hold onto every ounce of it while we can. I’ll be in touch.”

The line went dead. Eve slowly pulled the phone away from her ear, a grin wide across her face. 

Within minutes, she had booked a flight from Venice to Barcelona and was hurrying across the city to find a bus that would take her to the airport. It was only ten in the morning, but Eve hadn’t had breakfast so headed into a food shop to grab a meal-deal to have as an early lunch. She felt like she was walking on air. 

_ I’m going to see Villanelle, I’m going to see Villanelle,  _ was all she could think.  _ Maybe even tonight.  _

With that thought, Eve headed towards the toiletries aisle in the supermarket to pick up a travel razor and a tiny bottle of perfume. She wished she had brought some ‘nice’ clothes with her and cringed when she recalled how unflatteringly practical her underwear and bras were. 

Stop being presumptuous, she told herself. Horrified, Eve suddenly wondered about the possibility of Villanelle not wanting  _ her.  _

_ She could slam the door in my face, she could stab me, she could- _

A huge, burly security guard appeared in front of her and said something in Italian that sounded like a question. A very angry question.

“No!” was all Eve could think to say, “I’m English. No.”

“In your pocket,” he said and pointed to her jacket pocket. 

Scowling, Eve slipped her hand inside and pulled out the small bottle of perfume. 

_ Shit, shit, shit. _ She must have pocketed the bottle in her distraction at the thought of Villanelle. She handed it to him as though it was on fire.

“No, I didn’t mean to, I'm sorry,” she panicked, “it was an accident, I was distracted and I, I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

He scowled down at her, towering above Eve’s small frame. He took the bottle out of Eve’s outstretched hand and a smile flickered on his face.

“You are - how do you say in English?- cute.”

Eve’s jaw dropped. 

“I take you out for dinner and this,” he held the bottle between his giant finger and thumb, “is forgotten.”

“Yes,” Eve breathed, desperately trying to turn on her allure and flirt with the security guard. “Yes I would… like that.”

_ I absolutely would not like that, but sure. _

“This is my number,” he pulled out a business card and handed it to Eve who was attempting to flutter her eyelashes. 

“Thank you,” she smiled sweetly, “I’ll call you.”

“Excellent,” he passed the perfume bottle back to her and Eve turned and walked away.

Eve paid for her toiletries and lunch in a state of complete shock. The encounter had reminded her of the man in Rome who had asked her out on a date when she had pretended to be the hotel receptionist.

_ Men are weird. _

On her way out of the store, Eve passed a Postcard stand. She twisted it around on its axis, spotted one she liked and slipped it into her pocket with a smile.

**********

In the airport, Eve stuck the security guard’s business card onto the postcard of a bridge somewhere in Venice and wrote above it:

_ To Eve, I’m waiting at the airport now for my flight to Barcelona. Carolyn’s calling me later - hopefully - with her address. Maybe I’ll see her tonight, who knows. Wish me luck. Eve x _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> howdy!! here's the playlist!! I've made it collaborative so pls feel free to add some songs you think work well with the fic! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/19Zi9BQIeBhPZEGNTaP7w6?si=dcJHr5WrT4al8_SG1Ir8mg (if the link doesn't work, pls let me know!)   
> THank you all so much for all the amazing feedback, I'm glad you're all enjoying reading this as much as I am writing it. catch me on tumblr @ive-been-there-too-a-few-times if ya like !! more KE fics on my page x


	13. Tres Minutos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve is going to Villannelle's house and Villanelle is...

**Villanelle**

Villanelle adjusted the dial on her radio. She twisted it through crackles of static until a twang of something that sounded like Country pulsed through the speaker. 

_ That’ll do,  _ she thought, and put the portable radio back on the kitchen counter. The radio, oddly, had been left in her apartment when she moved in. It was old and didn’t get very loud but Villanelle had packed everything else so it was all she had to fill the silence and distract her from her thoughts.

She looked around her Barcelona apartment with a heavy sigh. In the few months that she had lived there, she hadn’t spent much time in the flat. No good times, anyway. Villanelle ran her fingertips along the cool metal taps.

“Thank you for the  _ excellent _ water pressure,” she spoke to the taps in a sweet, child-like voice. “You will be missed.”

A drip dropped from the tap and into the vast porcelain sink. Villanelle stuck out her tongue.

Dotted around the sizable apartment were only a few boxes; Villanelle had found she had hardly acquired anything in the last few months. Somehow, she had become a lot less materialistic and it scared her. The night before, she had been uncomfortably awake for hours researching on her laptop whether psychopaths are always psychopaths or if they can lose their psychopath-ness. Every lab report, PDF document and article told her what she already knew: once a psychopath, always a psychopath. So why was Villanelle feeling these new feelings?

“I was never a psychopath,” she breathed, realising this for the first time. A wave of nausea rolled over Villanelle. She swallowed.

_ I do not have time to be sick today. _

A glance at her watch told her the removal van would be there any minute. She had paid extra for the removal service to take everything and put it in a storage unit for her. Villanelle knew even a brief time spent in a storage box would bring back memories of Niko and, consequently, Eve. And she couldn’t cope with that. Not today, not when her flight was in only a few hours. 

The removal team - three Spanish guys that hardly looked old enough to drive - came and went, taking everything Villanelle owned with them. All Villanelle had left with her was a medium-sized leather case and her carry-on. She did one last nostalgic walk around the apartment. Even though she hadn’t had the best time living here, Villanelle had become attached to the flat.

_ Oh, I wish I was a psychopath, _ she thought and laughed to herself, and then,  _ why the hell am I wasting time here? The sooner I get to the airport, the sooner I am in London with Eve.  _

She burped and swallowed back her nausea.

**Eve**

“Carolyn, hey,” Eve gushed into the phone, “d’you have her-”

“Address? Yes,” Carolyn said efficiently to which Eve grinned and did a little jump in the air as she crossed the Barcelona airport.

“But it's going to cost you, Eve. How much is this information worth to you?”

“What?” Eve was baffled and stopped still in her tracks, causing a businessman to stumble into the back of her and yell something in Spanish. “What, what are you-”

“I’m joking Eve. My apologies, I forgot Villanelle has never been something you are able to joke about. Do you have a pen?”

Eve sighed, relief washing over her.

_ Carolyn was trying to make a joke? Weird.  _

Eve typed out Villanelle’s address into the notes of her phone. She triple-checked the postcode with Carolyn. 

“Yes, yes, that’s it Eve,” said Carolyn irritably, though Eve could hear a smile in her voice. “Now, go get your girl.”

This new sans-Geraldine Carolyn was… _ fun. _ Eve felt uncomfortable thinking of Carolyn as anything other than the cold-hearted, power-suited, corrupt boss that she was; however, her choice of words ‘go get your girl’ had Eve blushing and smiling uncontrollably so she let herself like this new -  _ fun -  _ Carolyn Martens. 

**Villanelle**

Villanelle left her keys in an envelope on top of the kitchen radio, as instructed by her estate agent. She crossed the apartment and wheeled her suitcase out the doorway and into the evening sunlight. As she lifted the case over the doorstep, she thought about Eve and how she longed to do that cheesy hetero-normative tradition of carrying your wife over the threshold into your first house together. 

_ It's not too late, _ she told herself hopefully, trying to believe it. Where would Eve be now? Villanelle had imagined, over and over, knocking on Eve’s front door and Eve immediately pulling her in for a passionate kiss. Or Villanelle leaning to kiss her first. Or them kissing each other simultaneously and Eve would say something like,  _ I'm never letting you go again _ or  _ I need you.  _

Villanelle longed to be needed by someone. She ached to be missed, to be loved. Showing up at Eve's house would be admitting to the world that she really, really wasn't who everyone thought she was. Villanelle didn't even know if she was ready for people's perceptions of her to change just yet. 

_ But this isn't about them, _ Villanelle told herself as she pulled her case behind her down the driveway,  _ this is about you and me.  _

Villanelle pulled out her phone and called a taxi to take her to the airport.

"Si, si, yes," he said down the phone. "Tres minutos." 

She leaned against the wall at the bottom of the property that was no longer hers and put her AirPods in with shaking fingers. 

**Eve**

Eve's hands trembled as she tried to zip her jacket into her backpack. Her apprehension about seeing Villanelle was making her sweat and shake. She sprayed some of the perfume she had bought earlier on herself and in her curls. 

The taxi driver kept looking at her in the rear-view mirror but she pretended not to notice his stares. Bouncing her knee nervously, Eve watched the blue line get shorter and shorter on the Google map she was watching on her phone. 

_ Twelve minutes. _ What would she even say to Villanelle?

_ Eight minutes.  _ What if Carolyn had given her the wrong address?

_ What if she's moved away and lives somewhere else? _ Eve felt sick at the thought of never, ever seeing Villanelle again

_ Four. _ Eve studied the landscape they were driving through. She wanted to soak everything in while she was still feeling positive. Right now, Schrödinger's Cat was unknown and out of her hands. But in four minutes she would know her fate. The cat would be dead or alive and Eve would be… sad or happy? Scared or relieved? 

_ Maybe even dead or alive.  _

In the front, the cab driver answered a call and pulled Eve out of her imagination. 

"Si, si, yes," he said into his earpiece. "Tres minutos".

Minutes turned to seconds and soon Eve was sliding across his leather seat, out of the cab and into the warm Spanish evening air. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh I apologise for the cliffhanger !!! (also sorry i'm being a lil slow with the chapters, I am working full-time atm but pls stay subbed!! got a really great few chapters planned!) thanks to everyone for reading!! x


	14. Eve Astankova

**Eve**

Eve was only numbly aware of her surroundings as she walked up the path to Villanelle’s extravagant home. Behind her, she vaguely heard her taxi driver’s voice as someone climbed into the cab she had just climbed out of and heard it’s acceleration as it drove away. 

_ This is it, _ she told herself,  _ there’s no going back now. _

The exterior of Villanelle’s house was, in simple terms, beautiful. And Eve, naturally, expected nothing less. Her stomach backflipped, cartwheeled and did a forward roll as she took each step towards the front door that was…  _ ajar?  _ She frowned at the sight and wobbled as she climbed up the front steps and tentatively pushed it open.

“Villanelle,” she said, though hardly any sound came out. Eve cleared her throat.  _ “Villanelle,”  _ she said again, louder this time. 

Nothing.

Eve stepped into the hallway of an impressive, open-plan apartment. Vast windows lined the walls and the decor was beautiful but something felt off. Where was everything? Dust sheets were draped over the minimal pieces of furniture. 

“Hello!” Eve called to the bare apartment. 

Why was the door open? Where were all her things? Eve almost fainted when she remembered watching the fake paramedics taking away Villanelle’s possessions in Paris. She shook her head.

_ She’s not dead, she’s not dead. She can’t be dead. _

Eve frowned. Where was Villanelle? Eve set her bag by the door and shut it behind her. She followed a high-ceilinged hallway to a glamorous - yet empty - bathroom then peered round a half-open door into what was Villanelle’s bedroom.

_ She’s moved out _ , Eve realised as she saw a bare mattress.

Before she had time to process this, Eve heard music drifting down the end of the hallway. She spun around and jogged towards the sound. Was that Country? 

“Villanelle!” She shouted and pushed open a door into the kitchen.

Eve’s heart was pounding. The work surfaces were bare except for an old radio and - what was that on top of it? - an envelope. The tempo in the song was rising with the twang of a steel guitar. Eve reached for the envelope, opened it and looked inside. 

**Villanelle**

The taxi she had just called for pulled to the curb in front of her. She waved it down and bent to pick up her suitcase. Noticing her shoe was untied, she bent down to tie it, with her back to the car. She felt whoever had just climbed out of the cab brush against her and walk past.

“Hola señora, como estas hoy?” Villanelle’s cab driver appeared behind her and asked with a polite smile. She stood up and let him lift her bag into the trunk of his car. 

Villanelle swiftly climbed in the door that was still open from his previous passenger and didn’t care to look back at her apartment as he drove her away. That chapter of her life was officially over.

_ One door closes, another opens, _ she thought and buckled her seatbelt. She breathed deeply, feeling relaxed knowing she would be reunited with Eve in a few hours. She felt so close to Eve in that moment, she could smell her familiar perfume. 

**Eve**

Eve dropped the envelope to the floor. Keys fell out of it and she collapsed against the sink.

“No, no, no,” she breathed. 

_ She’s moved out, _ Eve’s presumption was confirmed.  _ And recently.  _ She looked around the room for signs of where Villanelle could have gone to. A glass of water was on the granite worktop adjacent to the porcelain sink. Eve lunged for it. It was still cold.

“AAARGHHH!” Eve shouted. 

Villanelle must have only just left. Probably less than an hour ago, judging by the temperature of the water. Eve drank the entire glass in big gulps, longing for her thirst for Villanelle to be quenched. She stared at the rim of the glass and noticed a soft pink lipstick print lined the rim. Eve sank to the floor, holding the glass to her chest and sobbed.

Now what? This apartment was the only connection she had left to Villanelle. She had no way of finding where Villanelle was now. Eve felt angry at herself for falling for Villanelle, stupid for flying all this way to Barcelona only to find an empty flat and terrified at the notion of never seeing Villanelle again. Ever. 

Eve cried harder and harder, howling in pain.

“I love you!” She screamed into the empty flat. Her pained scream echoed back to her, ricocheting off the ornate, decorative walls.

“Where are you?” She shouted, desperate for an answer.

Tears brimmed and spilled out of Eve’s eyes.

“I can’t... do this... anymore,” she sobbed as she slumped against the cupboard and lay on the floor. It was cold and uncomfortable but Eve lay there for what could have been hours. She felt like she had been stabbed in her heart. Her chest ached with her loss.

When it was dark, Eve pulled herself off the floor and dragged her backpack to the bedroom. She slipped out of her shoes and opened her bag on Villanelle’s bare mattress. From it, she pulled her toiletry bag and made her way to the ornate bathroom. Eve squeezed toothpaste onto her toothbrush and numbly brushed her teeth. This simple act helped to ground her and allowed her to think logically.

_ I’ll be able to find her,  _ Eve told herself as she looked in the mirror at her tired eyes, red-raw from crying all evening. She closed her eyes and hung her head, imagining Villanelle in this bathroom with her. How many times had Villanelle brushed her teeth in this room? She spat the minty blue foam into the sink, gripping it on both sides. How many times had Villanelle done that exact motion?

Eve wanted to know everything. She wanted every piece of Villanelle she could hold onto. 

_ If it’s meant to be,  _ she looked at herself in the vast mirror, speaking to herself clearly, “it’ll be.”

It was almost midnight when Eve used Villanelle’s key to lock the front door and made her way to her bedroom and lay on the mattress. She had looked in every drawer, opened every cupboard and pulled back every piece of furniture as she hunted for any trace of Villanelle. Eve found nothing, not even an odd sock or an old crumpled receipt. Her shoulders sunk into the mattress and Eve imagined, with ease, lying here next to a sleeping Villanelle. She rolled onto her side and something glittered on the far side of the mattress. Moonlight shone through the window and Eve reached for what had shimmered in it’s light. It was one of Villanelle’s long, honey-coloured hairs. Between her thumb and forefinger, she held it delicately, only an inch or two from her face.

“I’m not giving up, Villanelle,” she said quietly as exhaustion washed over her, “I hope you aren’t going to either.”

**Villanelle**

Villanelle’s flight to London passed without much drama. She flew first class and slept the entire way. In the first class lounge, before she had boarded, she had chatted a little with a woman called Isabelle. At first, she had been drawn to Isabelle because she was an Asian woman and reminded her of Eve with her thick dark hair tied back. Isabelle was nice enough, and the two chatted over their evening decaf coffees about Spain this time of year and how much Isabelle wished she was more tan. Villanelle lost interest in her, though, when Isabelle took her hair down and Villanelle noticed how it was straight, unlike Eve’s voluptuous curls. 

_ There’s only one of you, Eve, _ she thought as she walked up the glass tunnel to board the flight. Around her, it was almost pitch black except for the twinkling lights of planes above. Villanelle felt small and alone.

“I can’t wait to see you,” she whispered as though Eve was walking with her up the gangway.

By the time Villanelle’s flight landed in London it was morning. Business men and women bustled around her carrying briefcases wearing expensive suits. Villanelle stood amongst them on the Tube, unable to hold herself still knowing she was only a couple of miles away from Eve’s flat. At the second stop, some people got off and Villanelle was able to slide into someone’s warm seat. A month ago, she would have hated sitting here on public transport in a seat heated from an old man’s ass. Today, though, Villanelle was giddy and nothing could bring her down. 

Opposite her, a woman in a pencil skirt crossed her long tanned legs and Villanelle felt her mouth water. She fantasised about reaching over and uncrossing Eve’s legs and diving between them.

The woman pulled out a newspaper. On the back of it Villanelle saw, with a pang of horror, a photo of herself the night she had thrown the badly-dressed Welsh girl onto the tracks. She leaned back in her seat and pulled her hood tight around her face.

_ Maybe it’s dangerous coming back to London? Am I returning to the scene of the crime?  _ Just as Villanelle thought this, the train pulled into a station and the woman with the legs and the newspaper left the carriage. Villanelle sighed, relieved.

She hoped that she could make it to Eve’s flat without being caught.

And she did.

Villanelle stood in the doorway of Eve’s apartment building and scanned the buttons on the wall for Eve’s. ‘Polastri’ had been scrawled in Eve’s messy writing next to the fourth button from the top. 

_ Astankova would look a whole lot better,  _ Villanelle thought.  _ Eve Astankova.  _ She smiled and pressed the button. 


	15. Poor Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Villanelle wanted to know every part of Eve. Every domestic scene between two lovers: she wanted it, needed it.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter has taken a lil longer than usual! hope u all enjoy <3

Villanelle waited. Pushed the button again. And waited some more. 

She pressed her forehead against the cool glass door and peered inside. The foyer appeared to be deserted. All of the adrenaline that had carried her from the airport, along the Tube and to here was seeping out of her. She hadn’t given much thought as to what she’d do if Eve wasn’t actually in.

Someone cleared their throat behind Villanelle and she spun around, twisting her suitcase with her. The man who had made the noise looked nervous and gestured to the door she was blocking him from entering. 

Knowing this awkward little man was her only hope at getting into Eve’s apartment any time soon, she immediately turned on her charm.

“Oh, thank goodness!” She said to him in her most polite British accent, “I was beginning to worry I’d be out here all day.” Villanelle moved aside to let him pass.

He hesitated.

“How do you know I’m not a burglar?” She asked him rhetorically as though reading his mind. “Well, I suppose you don’t.” She winked, “you’ll just have to trust me.. _. Daniel,” _ she read his name from the staff lanyard around his neck. 

He looked terrified with the moral dilemma of whether or not to let the seemingly nice lady into his building, yet still said nothing.

“Oh, Daniel,  _ please _ don’t make me wait out here all day, it looks as though it’s going to rain, you know.” She looked up at the clear blue sky with a cheeky shrug.

He scowled at Villanelle but reached forward to press his key fob to the sensor anyway. The door buzzed and clicked open.

“You’re a good man,” Villanelle said with a pout of her full lips.

He nodded and walked past her. Villanelle let her shoulders relax and followed him inside.

_ He must be gay, _ she thought,  _ who could resist this?  _ She caught her reflection in the shiny metal of the mailboxes to her left and winked.

Villanelle had only visited Eve’s apartment once before: the time she had hidden the bear in her bed. Every detail of Eve’s life was burned into her mind; however, and so she had no problem locating the right flat. Villanelle found herself in front of Eve’s front door within no time at all. What if Eve was in there? Villanelle felt panic rise in her throat. 

_ What if she doesn’t want me? _ Villanelle reached out her hand and placed it flat on the wooden door.  _ What happens then?  _ Villanelle stroked the tacky wood of the painted fire door, squinting at the spy-hole. She let herself remember how she had felt watching Eve through one of these, in that semen-stained hotel room on the other side of London last year. Her body reacted as though she was back there in that moment, pressed against the door with her eye straining through the narrow hole to catch a glimpse of Eve Polastri. 

Before she could talk herself out of it, Villanelle knocked on the door with three sharp taps of her knuckles. She felt her neck getting hot. It was still early in the morning, what if Eve was still in bed and had just ignored the buzzer?

Nothing.

She knocked again. Still nothing. 

_ Now what?  _ Villanelle looked at the spy-hole with her eyebrows raised as though Eve was watching her through it. She smiled and tried to look innocent, just in case she was.

“Sorry, baby, but it looks like I’m going to have to…” she murmured to herself with a sigh and pulled a pin out of her messy airplane travel hair.

Expertly, Villanelle knelt in front of the keyhole and picked the lock. She listened closely for the familiar click and her heart leapt into her mouth when she heard it.

She pushed the door tentatively open and peered inside.

Eve’s tiny studio apartment was dark, empty and smelled like sour milk. Villanelle choked back a sob. She had worked herself up so much at the prospect of seeing Eve today and all of the tension she had carried all the way from Barcelona knotted in her throat.

Villanelle closed the door behind her with a click and made her way through the cluttered mess on the floor to the window. The ledge was dusty. Where the hell was Eve?

She pushed the window open to do something about the smell and collapsed onto Eve’s bed in the corner of the room. Scattered all over the bed and the floor around it were clothes. Had Eve been packing? Villanelle couldn’t bear the thought of Eve fleeing London all alone - perhaps never to return - and so pushed it out of her mind.

She stared up at the ceiling, yellowing and damp in the corner by the window. 

“Honey, I’m home,” she breathed and closed her eyes, desperate for some relief. 

When sleep never came, Villanelle gave up, accepted that it wasn’t going to happen and started looking around Eve’s apartment for signs as to where she could have gone. She found herself at the fridge, her face in her t-shirt to save herself from the smell of the bad milk. One by one, Villanelle looked at the Use By dates on every item in the fridge to try and work out when Eve had left.

“I am not a detective, Eve,” she said sadly when she realised looking at food dates probably wouldn’t give her any clue as to where Eve had gone. “Maybe Carolyn is right, I wouldn’t be good working at MI6…” Villanelle trailed off and let the fridge door swing shut. 

Her mood shifted rapidly when the fridge door slammed. She kicked it, hard.

“Oh, fuck you!” Villanelle shouted, “fuck you for making me doubt myself!”

She threw her hands into her hair and began pacing back and forth across Eve’s tiny apartment.

“I come here to see you,” she said to the apartment, as though speaking to Eve, “and you’re not even here? Where are you? ARGH!” She kicked at the wall. “I’m done with being apart from you, Eve! I can’t do this! I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t think of anything except how fucking dumb I was to let you go!” She pressed the heels of her palms to her stinging eyes and willed for the scene on the Tower Bridge to be erased from her memory. “I love you! I fucking love you! I didn’t even know I was capable of love, actual _ love, _ and yet here I am! AND YOU’RE NOT HERE, EVE!”

Villanelle sobbed, and steadied herself against the fridge.

“You left me, Eve,” she breathed through waves of tears, “I came back for you, I was always gonna come back for you. I can’t let you go, I can’t…”

Villanelle sank to the floor, her knees hitting the tiles. Sharp pain shot up her thighs. 

“I need you, Eve,” she begged to the empty apartment.

**********

That night, Villanelle took a hot shower in Eve’s tiny bathroom. She had contemplated, briefly, leaving and going to stay in a hotel instead but couldn’t face the thought of Eve returning and not being there to open the door to her.

Villanelle had spent the afternoon cleaning. It was apparent that Eve had left in a hurry; there were piles of clean washing and half-drank cups of tea on every surface. Villanelle washed plates and glasses, disinfected work surfaces, took out the bins, scrubbed the inside of the fridge, vacuumed and even used the glass cleaner she had found under the sink to clean Eve’s windows and mirrors. She folded Eve’s laundry and washed anything that wasn’t clean, everything except her duvet cover. Villanelle couldn’t bring herself to strip the duvet of its Eve’s scented sheets. It took a lot of self control not to just climb into her bed and soak up every drop of Eve’s scent she could, but Villanelle wanted to make sure she was clean first. She didn’t want to taint Eve’s perfect smelling sheets with her own odour. And so, after cleaning all day so Eve would return to a more welcoming home, Villanelle peeled off her now sweaty airplane clothes and let the hot water pour over her and help clear her mind.

Villanelle let her mind wander as she used Eve’s ‘Curly Wurly’ Lush shampoo to wash her hair. The tiny shower cubicle filled immediately with steam and the scent of Coconut and Vanilla that reminded her so much of Eve had Villanelle almost weeping with pleasure.

“I wish you were here,” she sighed and closed her eyes, Eve’s scent filling her nostrils.

Villanelle pressed her body against the glass of the shower cubicle, aching to feel the pressure of Eve’s naked body against her own.

She pictured the details of what it would be like to shower with Eve. Villanelle imagined Eve would be shy at first, maybe even make her look the other way while she undressed and followed her into the tiny shower. This thought made Villanelle smile. She would tell Eve that she was beautiful and that she loved her.

“You are so beautiful,” Villanelle said with her eyes closed, her face close to the glass, water dripping into her mouth. In that moment she felt so close to Eve that Villanelle could almost taste her. “I love you.”

_ I love you too, _ Eve would say back. Villanelle felt she would spontaneously combust if she ever heard Eve say those words.

On the tiny shelf suckered to the wall was a toothbrush and old tube of Sensodyne toothpaste.

“Poor baby,” she said with a smile and squeezed some onto the brush. 

Brushing her teeth in the shower, Villanelle let herself think about Eve doing this same action. Did Eve always brush her teeth in the shower or was it just when she was rushing? Did she always use sensitive toothpaste or just after drinking wine?

She spat the white foam onto the yellowing shower floor, longing to watch Eve do that same action in person. Villanelle wanted to know every part of Eve. Every domestic scene between two lovers: she wanted it, needed it.

Villanelle toweled her body and hair dry, not bothering that her hair would look a mess when she woke up. Her mind was entirely consumed with Eve, Eve, Eve.

Naked and still warm from the shower, Villanelle slid between Eve’s cool bed sheets and moaned with how much pleasure the action gave her. The smell of Eve still lingered in the fabric and was only amplified by the coconut scent that her hair was radiating.

Villanelle rolled onto her back. Her nerves were tingling at how sensual it felt to be naked in Eve’s bed. 

_ Now I really, really wish you were here,  _ she thought and closed her eyes. Without thinking, her right hand slipped casually between her thighs.

“Mmmmh,” she murmured, imagining her fingers were Eve’s. 

A noise in the hallway startled her. Before she could even try and work out what had caused the sound, a key could be heard in the lock and the front door was being pushed open. 

  
  



	16. Eve's Postcards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve returns home - in more ways than one - from her Europe adventure.

It was late when Eve’s taxi dropped her off at her flat. She couldn’t bear to carry on inter-railing after seeing Villanelle’s empty apartment and so flew back to London on the first flight the morning after.

Eve was exhausted. She had almost walked past the mailbox in the entrance hall of her building but doubled back and scooped out all twelve of the postcards she had written to herself over the last month. She smiled as she sleepily read bits of them walking up the stairs to her flat. The act of coming home made Eve feel peaceful. Travelling Europe had been an incredible experience: the hostels, the night trains and the foreign cities; but Eve felt glad to be home. She only wished she was coming home to the woman she loved. 

The photo of the Eiffel Tower caught her eye amongst the collection of cards. Eve flipped it over to read what she had written.

‘ _ I’m up the Eiffel Tower right now. Pretty cool but damn, I wish she was here.’ _

Eve smiled a sad smile. Paris was where she had really admitted to herself that she loved Villanelle more than she had ever loved anyone else before. And it was love, of course it was. A person doesn’t go on a heartbroken tour of Europe if it wasn’t _ love _ . 

Eve flipped over the postcard she had written in Hungary and read what she had said about Niko. 

‘ _ Haven’t heard from him. Or anyone. Maybe I’m lonely, I don’t know. Wish you were here.’’ _

“Don’t kid yourself,” she mumbled to her previous self, knowing that ‘wish you were here’ she had written was meant for Villanelle, not Niko.

Eve leaned against the stairway railing on the second floor. She flipped over a postcard and squinted to make-out her messy drunken scrawl,

‘ _ I’m on a night train to Venice right now, and I’ve spent the whole evening talking about ‘my girlfriend, V’. It felt good. Really good.’ _

Eve sighed and carried on climbing up the stairs towards her flat.

“My girlfriend, V,” she murmured, running her thumb over the words on the postcard.  _ Where are you, Villanelle? _ Eve thought desperately.

Eve pulled out another postcard from the stack in her hand as she walked down the corridor towards her apartment: The Tower Bridge. All Eve had written here was ‘V +E’ in a heart. She cast her mind back to the night she had returned to the bridge as she fumbled in her pockets for her keys. Rain had smudged the ink a little and she remembered the taste of wine on her tongue as she had copied out the graffitied heart on the bridge.

“Wait a fucking second,” Eve said quietly to herself as realisation washed over her.  _ She wouldn’t have drawn that if she didn’t, if she didn’t… If she didn’t think I would go back there, and… wanted me to know…  _ “that she feels the same,” Eve finished her thought aloud. Scowling, Eve patted down her pockets for her keys.

_ But why leave Barcelona? If she thought leaving that note on the bridge for me to find would make her go and find her… why not stay put?  _

Eve’s fingers met the cool metal of her house keys in the back pocket of her jeans. She pulled them out and held her door key up to the lock.

_ What if she came here, what if she-? _

Excitement washed over Eve as she realised that Villanelle was, quite probably, in her flat right that second: waiting for her. She turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open as quickly as she could.

“Villanelle!” She shouted hopefully into the dark studio flat and flicked the light on as the door swung shut behind her. 

Eve’s knees buckled and her postcards fell to the floor at the sight of Villanelle hastily sitting up in her bed, surrounded in a cocoon of duvet. Villanelle looked happy, really genuinely happy at the sight of Eve.

“Eve,” was all Villanelle said. It was all she needed to say. Her glowing hazel eyes said the rest.

Eve threw her bag to the floor and crossed the carpet of her studio apartment in four strides.

Villanelle was in her bed, damp hair fanned out across Eve’s pillows.

Eve couldn’t quite believe her eyes. 

A lump rose in Eve’s throat. She had so many words she wanted to say but none came out.

“Hey,” Villanelle said casually, as though meeting in this scenario was completely normal. And it was. For them.

Eve sat down on the edge of her bed, staring at Villanelle. Was this real? Was this really happening? Was Eve really coming _ home _ to Villanelle, the very woman she had been chasing across the continent for the last month?

Eve couldn’t comprehend what was happening. She shrugged off her coat and pulled off her navy turtleneck sweater. 

Villanelle gazed at her with wide eyes. 

“I missed you,” Villanelle said quietly, breaking the silence.

Eve felt her heart physically ache at the words. She blinked slowly and sighed, her body relaxing and feeling - for the first time in weeks - completely safe. 

“I missed you too,” Eve said, her voice breaking and a tear rolled silently down her cheek. “How did we end up here?” Eve said with a small chuckle. 

Villanelle pulled an arm up and out from underneath the duvet and wiped away Eve’s tear with her thumb. The action had Eve’s heart racing uncontrollably.

Eve did what she had been longing to do for months: close the gap between her and Villanelle. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to Villanelle’s, their lips millimetres from touching. With Eve’s act of bravery, both women closed their eyes and breathed each other in. Eve shook with the overwhelming emotion she had been running from, catching planes to escape and sleeping in bunk beds to avoid.

“I can’t do it,” Eve breathed, admitting what she had realised in the last few weeks, “I can’t be away from you.”

She opened her eyes to see Villanelle’s sparkle in response to her words.

“You really feel the same?” Villanelle asked.

“I really do.”

Before either woman knew what was happening, their lips were pressing together. 

The feel of her own lips against Villanelle’s was everything Eve had dreamed and more. It was patient, loving and relaxed - the opposite of the time their lips had touched during their bus brawl all those weeks ago.

They kissed softly at first and then deeper. Eve shocked herself with a small moan that escaped her mouth when Villanelle’s hand tangled up in her curls. She could feel Villanelle being tentative and gentle with her, as though she was holding back and letting Eve take the lead. Eve complied and shifted her weight, rolling on top of Villanelle and kissing her hungrily.

_ Villanelle is in my room,  _ was all Eve could think.  _ Villanelle is here. Villanelle came back for me. _

“Thank you so much for breaking into my apartment,” Eve panted through their heated kisses.

“I wanted to be here when you came home,” Villanelle said softly and the feeling of her smile against Eve’s lips made her impossibly happy. Eve couldn’t wrap her head around any of this being real. She had so much to tell Villanelle, wanted to tell her about sleeping in her apartment the night before… but all of that could wait. Kissing Villanelle, really kissing her, was the only thing Eve could do in that moment. It had been so long-anticipated and it showed. Just the feeling of Villanelle’s body beneath her own had Eve’s mouth water and warmth grow between her thighs. She tugged at the duvet that was reluctantly intersecting their bodies.

“Eve,” Villanelle said, breaking the kiss, “I’m-”

“-Naked,” Eve breathed as she pulled back the blanket to reveal Villanelle’s bare torso.

Eve felt as though she was close to fainting at the sight of the woman she loved wearing nothing at all. Eve ached with happiness at the thought of Villanelle trusting her with the vulnerability of seeing her naked and waiting for her in her bed.

Eve kissed her again and slid into the warm duvet that Villanelle pulled back over them both. The comforting warmth of her familiar bedsheets, the tender kiss of the love of her life and the certain inevitability of what was to come between them resulted in Eve in a state of pure bliss.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” she murmured against Villanelle’s soft lips, pressing her fingertips to Villanelle’s body cautiously. She felt Villanelle grin and knew it was because of her tentativeness.

“You can touch me, you know,” Villanelle told her kindly. “But it’s okay if you’re not ready.”

Eve’s heart swelled at Villanelle’s kindness and kissed her deeper, running her hands towards Villanelle’s waist. Her small waist in Eve’s hands was everything Eve had been dreaming about all these months and so much more.

The next few hours passed in a glowing blur. They made love underneath the light of the streetlight casting golden shadows across their entwined bodies. Everything that had previously passed between them ceased to matter, ceased to even exist. They were simply two women in love. Villanelle was the most gentle lover Eve had ever been with. She read her body perfectly and had Eve’s eyes rolling through countless waves of climaxing pleasure. Over and over, Villanelle would whisper Eve’s name, as though she couldn’t quite believe what was happening either. 

When the sun was beginning to rise - replacing the light of the streetlamp shining through the window - the two women collapsed into each other’s spent arms, their bodies now one entity entirely. Eve nestled her face into the nape of Villanelle’s slender neck and held onto her tightly. She felt Villanelle respond to her hug as though it was the best thing Villanelle had ever experienced. So much passed between the two women that night. Eve felt Villanelle press loving kisses along her hairline as though each kiss was a word she longed to say but couldn’t yet.

“Eve, I’m not good at life without you,” Villanelle whispered, almost too quiet for her to hear. Eve knew how difficult it was for Villanelle to admit her feelings and show her vulnerability so she squeezed Villanelle’s waist and kissed her collarbones lovingly.

“I read this book,” Eve said quietly through small kisses up Villanelle’s neck, “last month when I was on a plane.”

“A Plane? Where did you go?”

“That’s a very long story,” Eve said with a chuckle. “The book was called ‘The Bridges of Madison Country’. It was about this woman who was married but not,” she paused, “happily.”

Villanelle stayed perfectly still beneath Eve as she waited patiently for her story.

“She met a man one day and they had these perfect four days together,” Eve groaned into Villanelle’s neck in embarrassment at deciding to tell Villanelle her book synopsis. 

“You are so cute,” she could hear the smile in Villanelle’s voice. “Carry on, baby.”

_ Baby.  _ Eve thought she would melt upon hearing Villanelle calling her ‘baby’.

“The woman, she ended up staying with her husband because of their kids but they never stopped… loving each other even though they were apart. I think what I’m trying to say is… well there’s this bit in the book where he says…”

Villanelle squeezed Eve’s waist reassuringly as though willing her to keep going. Eve felt her heart pound at the trust and _ love _ that was passing between them both.

“The man, the one she fell in love with but let him go, he said something about feeling like he was living with another person inside of him. He said it was as though there was a third person that the two of them had created and he was forever going to be stalked by that other being.” Eve sighed. “And I fucking feel that so fucking much. I’m never gonna shake you off and I think that’s partly because I, well, I really don’t want to. But it’s more than that. I think you and me, I think we’re-”

“-Meant to be,” Villanelle finished her confession for her as she pulled Eve gently to face her and her hazel eyes bore into Eve’s dark ones. Villanelle kissed Eve’s lips and spoke into them so Eve could feel her words vibrate through her whole body.

“I’m so in love with you, Eve. I have been all this time.”

Eve kissed Villanelle and tears began to pool in their eyes. All of the chasing and the killing and the MI5 and the MI6 were over: Eve knew it. In that moment, they were just two women confessing their feelings for one another; their history didn’t matter. It was all over now.

“Villanelle,” Eve sighed into the kiss of her lover, “I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> t h a n k y o u so much for reading all of my story!!!! the fact that you -you, sat there reading this- have read 25,000 words written by me is insane!! i'm so blessed and honoured and grateful and excited and wow thank u sm!!! if yous want it, i might add a rlly smutty chapter at the end of this or just write a smutty one shot somewhere - i feel like that's what this story is missing ha ha ;) pls check out my other fics if u haven't already & stay subbed bcos I'm writing more !! lotsa love <3 thank u !!!!!


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